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1941. 


Aspects of revelation 


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ASPECTS OF REVELATION ae 


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Coming into the world, 


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BEING THE BALDWIN 
LECTURES FOR 1900 


BY ~ 


CHAUNCEY B. BREWSTER, D.D. 


BISHOP OF CONNECTICUT 


LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
gl AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 


LONDON AND BOMBAY 
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_COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY 
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 


All rights reserved. 


Press of J. J. Little & Co. 
_ Astor Place, New York 


LOY THs 
RIGHT REVEREND THOMAS FREDERICK DAVIES, D.D., LL.D., 
BISHOP OF MICHIGAN, 
NOT ALONE ON ACCOUNT OF A FAMILY FRIENDSHIP 
OF SEVERAL GENERATIONS, 
BUT, MOREOVER, IN RECOGNITION 
OF HIS WISDOM AND SCHOLARSHIP 
AND OF HIS CHARACTER, 
THESE LECTURES, DELIVERED WITHIN HIS DIOCESE. 
ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 


Poon leet KOM hE EDD OF TRUST «IN 
ACCORDANCE WITH THE PROVISIONS 
OF WHICH. THE BALDWIN -LEC. 
TURES WERE INSTITUTED 


‘* THIS INSTRUMENT, made and executed be- 
tween Samuel Smith Harris, Bishop of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese 
of Michigan, of the city of Detroit, Wayne 
County, Michigan, as party of the first part, 
and Henry P. Baldwin, Alonzo B. Palmer, 
emnve ws Liayden, woidneye)., Miller, Vand 
Henry P. Baldwin, 2d, of the State of Michi- 
gan, Trustees under the trust created by this 
instrument, as parties of the second part, wit- 
nesseth as follows :— 

elnechesyearsot Our Lord one thousand 
eight hundred and eighty-five, the said party 
of the first part, moved by the importance of 
bringing all practicable Christian influences to 
bear upon the great body of students annually 
assembled at the University of Michigan, un- 
dertook to promote and set in operation a plan 
of Christian work at said University, and col- 
lected contributions for that purpose, of which 
plan the following outline is here given, that 
is to say :— 

Seismeloucrect eampuilding -or hall nearpthe 


vill THE BALDWIN LECTURES 


University, in which there should be cheerful 
parlors, a well-equipped reading-room, and a 
lecture-room where the lectures hereinafter 
mentioned might be given; 

‘' 2. To endow a lectureship similar to the 
Bampton Lectureship in England, for the 
establishment and defence of Christian truth: 
the lectures on such foundation to be deliv- 
ered annually at Ann Arbor by a learned 
clergyman or other communicant of the Prot- 
estant Episcopal Church, to be chosen as here- 
inafter provided: such lectures to be not less 
than six nor more than eight in number, and 
to be published in book form before the in- 
come of the fund shall be paid to the lecturer; 

‘3. To endow two other lectureships, one 
on Biblical Literature and Learning, and the 
other on Christian Evidences: the object of 
such lectureships to be to provide for all the 
students who may be willing to avail them- 
selves of them a complete course of instruction 
in sacred learning, and in the philosophy of 
right thinking and right living, without which 
no education can justly be considered com- 
pleter 

4. To organize a society, to,be composed 
of the students in all classes and departments 
of the University who may be members of or 
attached to the Protestant Episcopal Church, 
of which society the Bishop of the Diocese, 
the Rector, Wardens, and Vestrymen of St. 
Andrew’s Parish, and all the Professors of the 
University who are communicants of the Prot- 
estant Episcopal Church should be members 


THE BALDWIN .LECTURES 1X 


ex officio, which society should have the care 
and management of the reading-room and lec- 
ture-room of the hall, and of all exercises or 
employments carried on therein, and should 
moreover annually elect each of the lecturers 
hereinbefore mentioned, upon the nomination 
of the Bishop of the Diocese. 

‘In pursuance of the said plan, the said so- 
ciety of students and others has been duly or- 
ganized under the name of the ‘ Hobart Guild 
of the University of Michigan;’ the hall above 
mentioned has been builded and called ‘ Ho- 
bart Hall;’ and Mr. Henry P. Baldwin of De- 
troit, Michigan, and Sibyl A. Baldwin, his 
wife, have given to the said party of the first 
part the sum of ten thousand dollars for the 
endowment and support of the lectureship first 
hereinbefore mentioned. 

‘“ Now, therefore, I, the said Samuel Smith 
Harris, Bishop as aforesaid, do hereby give, 
grant, and transfer to the said Henry P. Bald- 
win, Alonzo B. Palmer, Henry A. Hayden, 
sidney D. Miller, and Henry P. Baldwin, 2d, 
Trustees as aforesaid, the said sum of ten 
thousand dollars to be invested in good and 
safe interest-bearing securities, the net income 
thereof to be paid and applied from time to 
time as hereinafter provided, the said sum and 
the income thereof to be held in trust for the 
following uses :— 

““1. The said fund shall be known as the 
Endowment Fund of the Baldwin Lectures. 

‘“ 2. There shall be chosen annually by the 
Hobart Guild of the University of Michigan, 


Xx THE BALDWIN LECTURES 


upon the nomination of the Bishop of Michi- 
gan, a learned clergyman or other communi- 
cant of the Protestant Episcopal Church, to 
deliver at Ann Arbor and under the auspices 
of the said Hobart Guild, between the Feast 
of St. Michael and All Angels and the Feast 
of St. Thomas, in each year, not less than six 
nor more than eight lectures, for the Estab- 
lishment and Defence of Christian Truth; the 
said lectures to be published in book form by 
Easter of the following year, and to be en- 
titled ‘ The Baldwin Lectures; ’ and there shall 
be paid to the said lecturer the income of the 
said endowment fund, upon the delivery of 
fifty copies of said lectures to the said Trus- 
tees or their successors; the said printed vol- 
umes to contain, as an extract from this in- 
strument, or in condensed form, a statement 
of the object and conditions of this trust.’’ 


Pica Gt 


THE following lectures were prepared pri- 
marily for the audience presupposed by the 
terms of the foundation—an audience of col- 
lege students, intelligent and thoughtful, but 
not versed in theology. 

It is noteworthy that, in our time, all higher 
thought, of whatever school, touching religion 
concerns itself earnestly with the subject of 
revelation. This large subject I have by no 
means attempted to treat exhaustively. But 
it has been my aim to present some aspects 
thereof in a review of the increasing manifesta- 
tion of the true Light which lighteth every 
man, coming into the world. 

The key-note of my theme will be found in 
the fourth lecture, which treats of personality. 
Just now there is, in certain quarters, a fash- 
ion of thinking and talking of the Deity ina 
vague, impersonal, and sometimes unintelli- 
gible way, which is not without menace to 
old landmarks of truth and right. 

For another reason, also, I would call atten- 


xii PREFACE 


tion to a revelation of personality. Nota 
few writers upon theological subjects to-day 
are founding their conclusions upon a unity 
of nature between God and man. Such 
sround, however, is not beyond question. 
God is not to be identified with man except 
as, in the Incarnation, the divine and human 
natures were joined in one Person. The the- 
ories above referred to, however, would seem 
to base the Incarnation upon a prior and essen- 
tial unity between God and man. A unity of 
likeness and correspondence may be supposed, 
but not, I hold, of identity. Certainly God is 
not the same as man. Between God and man 
there must be recognised to be the difference of 
some essential distinction. The common term 
between them is found only as human nature 
is brought within the larger category of some- 
thing which it shares with the divine nature. 
Now there is something which man does 
share with God, and that is personality. Here, 
I venture to think, is to be found that com- 
mon term which has been sought. And my 
contention is, that, while there is not between 
God and man an identity or unity of nature, 
there is a certain kinship through the personal 


PREFACE Xiil 


relations in which God has revealed Himself. 
This, to my mind, seems to meet the difficulty 
of maintaining a distinction between God and 
man without the separation of an impassable 
distance, and to furnish that which has been 
desired as a basis for the facts of divine inspi- 
ration and Incarnation. 


In the fifth lecture there is manifested toward 
the critical study of sacred Scripture an atti- 
tude which may possibly fail to commend 
itself to some persons. I do not, however, 
see how any honest investigation of the Holy 
Scriptures can be regarded with apprehension 
by one whose faith rests not on a Book, hal- 
lowed and precious though its pages be, but 
upon adivine Person. Some years ago, the 
ime Lvutton remarked ;) 4 Bibliolatry 
has been, and is likely long to be, the bane of 
Protestant Christianity.’’+ The Catholic posi- 
tion, however, affords ground whereon to 
await the assured results of Biblical criticism 
with equanimity, and in the firm confidence 
that the truth as it is in Jesus has nothing 


‘Essays Theological and Literary. Second Ed., 1880, 
VOL. %, p. T15. 


aiy PREFACE 

oe ee 
whatever to fear from anything that shall be 
found to be true. ) 

The doctrines -of the faith it has not been 
my attempt to treat with anything like theo- 
logical completeness. For example, the 
Virgin birth of our Lord I have assumed. So 
also, in referring to the Atonement, the doc- 
trine of forgiveness has been touched upon 
only by implication. Indeed, the Incarnation 
and the Atonement have been considered only 
in relation to the process of revelation which 
was my subject. 

In publishing these lectures as required by 
the conditions of the trust, I could not fail to 
be aware of some, at least, of their deficiencies. 
Let me say that, while I esteem it a peculiar 
privilege and honour to be in this way associ- 
ated with the memory of the generous layman 
who endowed this lectureship, and of my be- 
loved Bishop of former days, whose large pur- 
poses this foundation was intended to serve ; 
yet I would indeed that my fulfilment of the 
office thus laid upon me might have been 
more worthy of my great subject than the pres- 
sure of somewhat exacting duties has allowed. 


HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT, 
Lent AL Lae fon. 


CONTENDS 


LECTURE I 
A REVELATION IN NaTURE 
PAGE 
Meaning of the term Nature f : : a tees 3, 4 
Nature appealed to in Christ’s teaching : ans 
The Symbolism of Nature. : : : P5500 
I. SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MATERIAL WORLD 6 
I. A general fact, to be distinguished from partic- 
ular interpretations of it . ‘ a 
2. Modern prophets of Nature . ; ; : coef hS 
II, THE NatTurAL REVELATION AND THE SCIENTIFIC 
ASPECT OF THE WORLD . : : : Se eee 
1. A manifestation through the mechanism of Nature, 9 
(1) In scientific thought a reaction from Material- 
ist yey : é : : ; Ow LO 
(2) The interpretation of Force, : LO GT 
(3) The expression of Spirit through matter. Ga: 
(4) Self-expression a characteristic of Spitite.. Tower 
(5) This spiritual significance enlarged by the 
progress of Science. 13, 14 


2. The Revelation in Nature as fieced oe the 
theory of Evolution : : q : 14, 15 


xvi CONTENTS 


PAGE 

(1) Nature not the less fraught with Purpose . 15-17 

(2) In the Variations of Nature lies the secret 5 VERY, 
(3) The tendency and outcome of the Evolution 

considered . , ; : ‘ : 173-15 

(4) Manifest rational and moral Purpose ‘ 18-20 

3. Nature related to man . : ; : ; 20-22 


III. THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE SUBLIME IN NATURE . 22 
I. (1) Beauty expresses a spiritualideal . : ieee 
(2) Implies reason ; : : F : 22 3 

(3) Offers a respite from materialistic scepticism 23-25 

2. The impression of the Sublime  . : ; « Hs 


IV. THE REVELATION IN NATURE NOT WITHOUT 


LIMITATIONS . : 5 . : ; <p eeee 
I. A communication in cipher . : : : 6 ay 
2. Nature a vesture that not only expresses, but also 

veils . : P : ‘ : ; , 27-29 
3. Her meaning may be missed ; ; : 29, 30 
4. Need of spiritual discernment , ; 2 ov. 


5. Nature not an adequate manifestation, only a be- 
ginning which warrants expectations of further 
Revelation ‘ . : ; : 4 30-33 


LECTURES 
A REVELATION IN Man 


With Man a new stage in the long process of manifesta- 

tion : ; ‘ : : 3 , 4, 37-39 
I, His SPIRITUAL CAPACITIES . : 5 : : 39 
He can have no knowledge of God except through Rey- 


elation . ; ; ; : : : ; 39-41 


CONTENTS vil 
emeenteere eee i Ss AN 


PAGE 
I. A disclosure in the primary Intuitions of human 


nature 3 ; . m : ° : 8 4! 
(1) Self-consciousness involves a consciousness of 
the Infinite . ; : : ‘ : 42-44 
(2) The sense of Moral Obligation ‘ : 44, 45 
(2) It cannot be explained by analysis : 45, 46 
(4) It is significant of Purpose . : : su ele 
(c) It is clothed with Authority . F é ne Ay 
(Z) Which is Unconditional : : : 7 47-49 
(ce) It is a manifestation within Man of a Higher 
than self . ; ; ; : . 49, 50 


2. The truth of the divine existence is not demon- 
strated by syllogistic proof, but underlies all 
demonstration . : ; ; : . 50, 51 

The Primary Sphere of divine manifestation Sis 2 

3. The importance, in this connection, of the Sub- 

conscious . : : ‘ : : : 52-54 
Notwithstanding crude forms, there were primi- 
tive rudiments of religious conviction ; 54-56 


II. THE METHOD OF REVELATION TO PREHISTORIC 


MEN. ; ; : : - : ; 56-58 
I. Not arbitrarily, but according to law. : 58, 59 
2. The light a common possession, and thus Revela- 

tion becomes objective and historic . ’ 59, 60 
3. Revelation an historic Evolution . : : 61, 62 


III]. THE TENDENCY OF THE ENTIRE EVOLUTION 
LEADS Us TO ExpEcT A FURTHER DEVELOP- 

MENT. THUS A SPECIAL REVELATION . yey 

This is not out of line with the entire Evolution . 62 

The Special Revelation and the Ethnic Religions 63, 64 


XVill CONTENTS 


PAGE 
The historic development of the Special Revela- 
tion . ; . A : . i » Pas 
The meaning of te term Evolution as applied to 
Revelation ; : ‘ ‘ : ‘ 65, 66 


LECTURE -2iIl 
A REVELATION THAT REVEALS 


I. THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE INVOLVES THE 
POSSIBILITY OF REVELATION . Bs 
1. The Negative Position of the Kantian Philcecoky 69, 70 

(1) There is involved the question not only of 
knowing God, but of knowing anything 70, 71 

(2) (a) The denial of a knowledge of reality belied 
by the verifiable attainments of Science 71, 72 

(4) The forms of thought: their unity with 
forms of things : : : : sg 
2. The Positive Position of Kant ? P ‘ 92°99 

(1) His vindication of the mind’s super-sensual 
power . : . . . . : . 73 

(2) Mind constituted with an energy which may 
apprehend where it does not comprehend 73, 74 
3. Revelation according to Hamilton and Mansel 74-76 


4. The Philosophy of the Unknowable . ; 76-80 
II. KNOWLEDGE CAN BE ONLY PARTIAL . : . 3g 
But because incomplete not therefore invalid . 81, 82 
The Unknowable the partly known ; ; 82, 83 
Mystery inevitable : ‘ f ; ‘ 83, 84 


Not the mystery of darkness . : : . «., wee 
But the mystery of light, self-revealing . < 84, 85 
The knowledge of God, although partial, is true 85, 86 


CONTENTS X1LX 


PAGE 
III, THE REVELATION MorRE THAN INTELLECTUAL 86, 87 
1 A moral and spiritual disclosure . : : 88, 89 

2 Through limited media a Revelation of moral 
and spiritual truth . : : : : 89, 90 
3 Knowledge through experience of spiritual life go, 91 
4. Effect of doubt upon spiritual life : : gI, 92 
3. Mystery not an incubus upon spiritual life. 92, 93 

6. Intellectual difficulties may be made a means of 
Spiritual progress. , : 5: ; 93-95 

LECTURE IV 
A REVELATION OF PERSONALITY 

The question between two forms of the idea of God 99 
Deism no longer tenable : : : : LOD. LOO 


I. PANTHEISM, ITS FASCINATION LIES IN THAT 


WHICH IS NOT ITS PROPERTY EXCLUSIVELY IOO, IOI 


Differing forms of Pantheism compared with 


Theism : ‘ : : ‘ : . I0I-103 
II. THE IssuE BETWEEN PANTHEISM AND THEISM 103 
I. Tc refuse a revelation of transcendence is to 
be blindfold to moral distinctions waelLO3 104. 
2. By Pantheism, again, individual being is 
merged in the universal . : A - 104, I05 
(1) Self in the light of consciousness : . 105, 106 
(2) The touchstone of reality . : ‘ 3 106 
(3) Self-determination . : : 107 


(4) Superiority of the Seeds to the imper- 

Sonal>, . ; : A : . 107, 108 
(5) Personality a mystery but an ittithate fact 108, 10g 
(6) Its importance . ; - : : : 109 


CONTENTS 


III. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PERSONALITY IN THE 
PROCESS OF REVELATION ° : 
1. Anthropomorphism 
2. Men not aliens in the world . : : 
(1) The world manifests will and intelligence . 
(2) Which involve consciousness and determi- 
nation of self , ° 
The positions of Schopenhauer and of 
Hartmann unreasonable 
3. Spirit involves Personality . : . . 
IV. A REVELATION OF SELFHOOD IN ACCORD- 
ANCE ‘WITH REASON © J. . ©. 
1. Personality not incompatible with the idea of 
Infinite Spirit . : : ; : 
2. Personality does not necessarily involve finite- 
ness . : : ; : : ‘ : 
3. On the contrary, lack of Personality would 
imply limitation : : ; ; 4 
4. In man Personality imperfect in its develop- 
ment . . ‘ . . . 
5. In God Personality in infinite fulness and 
perfection . : 2 : : ‘ . 
V. REVELATION DEPENDS UPON PERSONALITY IN 
Gop AND MAN . ° ° : ; : 
1. To the Infinite Spirit belongs freedom of 
self-expression . : : : ‘ : 
2. The personal element in Inspiration 
3. Revelation, always personal, involves a grow- 
ing acquaintance with Personality in God 
and man . : : ; ; . . 


4. Herein consists the progress of Revelation 


PAGE 
10g, IIO 
III, £12 

112 


113, II4 


II4 


II4-116 
116 


116 
If7; £16 
118, I19 

IIg 
IIg, 120 
120-122 
123,124 
124,125 


126, ‘127 


127 
127; 123 


CONTENTS XXi 
LECTURE V 
A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 
PAGE 
Possibility of a distinction between the Holy Script- 
ures and the Revelation they record ISU 132 
Necessity of such a distinction : 132 
Textual and literary criticism not to be AMA E3201 33 
I, INSPIRATION :. 
I. Its relation to Revelation 133-135 
2. Its mysterious power 135, 136 
3. Its personal operation : 130,41357 
4. Breathing into the history quickening im- 
pulses of progress 137 
II, THE REVELATION MUST BE PROGRESSIVE 
BECAUSE IT IS 
1, Historic, consisting not merely in words, but 
in divine doings : 138, 139 
2. Also, a Revelation of Personality . 139, 140 
Thus a gradually advancing education . 140 
III. STEPS IN THE PROGRESS OF THAT EDv- 
CATION : 
1, Prehistoric and patriarchal names of God 140, 141 
2. The name peculiar to the Old Testament 
Revelation. : : : I4I 
(1) Its possible earlier mio 141 
(2) Its history, after its Mosaic promulgation, 
an unfolding of momentous import . 142 


(3) Its significance not metaphysical, but in- 
creasingly ethical and spiritual, z.¢. per- 
sonal. : . : 


143 


XXil CONTENTS 


(4) An august vehicle of progressive Revela- 
tion 
3. The peculiarly epkenes title 
IV. DEVELOPMENT BY SELECTION : 
. Election of a people, according to fitness 
2. Election of individuals . 
(1) The figure of Abraham, idealised oe his. 
toric 
(2) Moses : : : : : 
(2) His creative work, political and religious 
(6) Ethical impulse , : 
The Decalogue, its beeanalite: of un- 
folding application 4 : 
(c) To him a higher degree of disclosure 
(dz) His age an epoch of origins . 
(3) David 
(4) Elijah 
V. PROPHECY: 
1. Its development from rude beginnings . 
2. The personal power of the great Prophets 
3. The mission of Prophecy : : : 
(1) To transform the popular faith in a merely 
national God . 
(2) And to interpret God’s aeeceie 
(3) The Revelation through the Prophets in- 
creasingly ethical and spiritual, and, to 
that degree, universal . ‘ ; ‘ 
VI. THE Messianic HOPE: 
. Its beginning's : : : . 
2. Its further development : 
(1) Set in- local and temporal aeeeee but 


PAGE 


145, 


147, 
148, 


149, 
150, 


152; 
153, 


154, 


144 
144 


146 
146 


147 
147 
148 
149 


149 
150 
151 
I5I 
I51 


153 
154 
154 
154 
155 


156 


156 
157 


CONTENTS 


including an element that transcended 

such limits * ; : 
(2) Redemption through suffering . - : 
(3) Spiritualising tendency and personal note 
3. The entire history prophetic . : ‘ ‘ 


VII. THE REVELATION AN EDUCATION IN PER- 
SONALITY . : : : : : 
1. Evidence thereof in the Psalms 
2. An education involving expansion . : 
Of this expansion evidence in the Wisdom 
literature . : : 
(1) That literature a link of connection with 
the thought of other peoples 
(2) Its value for later ages 


VIII. A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION TO BE ESTI- 
MATED BY ITS FINAL OUTCOME . 

I. Early stages served a purpose of education, 
but involved what was imperfect and de- 
fective : : é : é : ° 
2. A gradual purification from imperfection and 

a positive increase in truth 
3. What seemed retrogression served a purpose . 
4. Uniqueness of this history of elevation and 
expansion . : : 5 . . ° 


LECTURE VI 


XXili 


159, 


160, 


162, 


163, 
164, 


165, 


PAGE 


157 
158 
159 
159 


159 
160 
160 


161 


THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED: GOD IN CHRIST 


I. THE NOTE OF PERSONALITY, INCREASING 
THROUGHOUT THE PROCESS, WITH JESUS 
CHRIST Is ALL IN ALL 


169 


XXIV CONTENTS 


1. His personal character,—sinless . ° 
2. His personal attitude toward men. 
3. His personal consciousness . : 
On this is based His Revelation , 
4. His Revelation, in matter and method eperstnn 
True significance of His words 
5. His teachings regarding Himself : 
(1) Messiah 
(2) ‘‘Son of Man” ; 
(3) ‘‘Son of God.” The Son 
II. A REVELATION OF THE GODHEAD 
For this the Revelation in Nature inadequate . 
Begun in Hebrew history : ; . : 
1. It is consummated in Jesus Christ. 
(1) The Representative of God 
(2) The Revealer of God : 
2. The key-note of the Revelation filial . 
(1) Progress in this regard beyond the He- 
brew Scriptures - . 
(2) The Fatherhood of God in ae connec- 
tion with human life 
(3) God’s personal love 
3. The Resurrection . : : 
4. The Revelation more than a subjective im- 
pression . : ; : : : ° 
III. THE APOSTLES SAW IN CHRIST THE SON OF 
Gop INCARNATE : ; ; . 
1. The Incarnation an unveiling of Personality 
in God 
(1) In all fulness ; 
(2) In a glory ethical and nindel 


PAGE 
170-172 
172, 173 
173, 174 

174 
174-176 
176, 177 


177-179 
179-182 
182-184 

185 
185, 186 
186 
187 
187 
187, 188 

188 


186, 


188, 18g 


189, 
190, 


190 
Igl 
192 


192-194 
194-196 
196 


196 
197 


CONTENTS 


2. Fatherhood revealed as essential to God. 
Eternally ‘‘God is love”. ° 
3. The Holy Spirit 
4. Father, Son and Holy Ghost, not mere modes, 
but personally distinct 
(1) Three Persons in a unity . : 
(2) A living unity of eternal communion . 
5. A Revelation intelligible to human appre- 
hension and sympathy 
IV. REVELATION INVOLVES SELF-LIMITATION 
The Kenosts 
The self-emptying mysterious : : 
But in order to a fuller Revelation . : 
V. THE INCARNATION HAS A COSMIC SIGNIFI- 
CANCE : : : ; : 
It is not a mere expedient to meet the emer- 
gency of sin, but is an eternal counsel. ? 
VI. A SELF-LUMINOUS REVELATION 


ce 


1. Not dependent upon ‘‘ external evidences ” 


(1) Miracles are included in the Revelation 
(2) Its real proof is its Truth . : 

2. The Mystery of the Incarnation . : : 
Yet a key to other mysteries . ° . : 


TECTURE Vit 


THE REVELATION CONTINUED: CHRIST IN 


In Christ a revelation : 
Parreriect. : : : : : : ; 
2.Permanent . A A . : 
cy Lone es : ; ; : , 4 . 


XXV 


PAGE 


197, 198 
198, 199 


199 
200 
200, 201 


203, 204 
204-206 
206, 207 


208 
208 


207, 


208 
209, 210 
2IOM2LE 
2II 


211, 212 


MEN 


215 
215, 210 
216 


XXVi CONTENTS 


I. CHRIST NOT ONLY WAS THE CONSUMMATION 
oF HISTORY, BUT ALSO INAUGURATED AN 
EpPocH AND INITIATED A TYPE. 

1. Promise of progressive continuation : : 
2. A Revelation not only educative, but also re- 
demptive . : : . : . . 


Il. THE ATONEMENT : 
1. Approached on the side of Revelation . : 
(1) The sequel of, and involved in, the Incar- 
nation : ; 
(2) The suffering was not as a substitute, but 
was vicariously representative 
(3) A suffering for sins . : A ; : 
(4) In the voluntary obedience was made per- 
fect satisfaction . : 5 : 
(5) The Passion a revelation of sin. 
(6) A revelation of God . 
2. A sacrifice wherein men must participate 
(1) The Sacraments é : : ; : 
(2) Redemption from sin ; ‘ . : 
(3) Emancipation and the redemption of life . 
(4) The Cross a revelation to man and a reve- 


lation in man. . : : 


III. In Christ : 
1. Arevelationof man . ° : ° . 
(1) Divine design . ; ; . : : 
(2) Capability of Incarnation . : : : 
(3) Worth in price of redemption . : ‘ 
(4) Interpretation of human life. , 
(5) Eternal destinies ‘ , : ; ‘. 


PAGE 


S16 819 
217, 218 


218 


218, 219 
219 


220 
221 


221-223 
223 
223, 224 
224, 225 
225 
225, 226 
226 


226.225 


227 
227 
227 
227 
207, 225 
228 


CONTENTS 


(6) The habitation of the Holy Spirit continu- 
ing the Incarnation 
2. A new day for human nature. 
(1) A wider horizon : : é . 
(2) New virtues and new development of the 
old ; 
(3) An unfolding of power é 
(4) To be manifested in Crisedteht history 
(2) Capacity of renewal 
(4) And of progress 


IV. More PARTICULARLY CHRIST’S REVELATION 
Is CONTINUED IN CHRIST’S PEOPLE 
1. A Commonwealth of Man : 
2. The Church an organ of further disclosure 
(1) To celestial principalities . 
(2) To the world : : 
3. The Church an organism for continuing the 
Incarnation 
4. Its unity 
5. Its universality 
(1) The Catholic conception of the Churcti 
(2) Christian Missions , 
(3) (a) Social relations as affected e Christ’s 
revelation . 
(4) The Catholic Breed 


V. THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL SOCIAL BECAUSE FIRST 
OF ALL PERSONAL 

1. The Revelation has purposes for personal life. 

2. In each life, parallel with the realisation of 

self is the conception of God’s personality . 


229 
229 
229-231 


231, 232 
232 
232, 233 
233 
233, 234 


234, 235 
235 
Bone 236 
236 


237-239 
239, 240 

240 
240-242 
242, 243 


243, 244 
244, 245 


245, 246 


246, 247 


XXVIII CONTENTS 


3. The Providential ordering of personal life an 
education . ‘ ; ; 
4. The Revelation in Christ involves a like per- 
sonal experience : 4 : . 
5. It is addressed not to intellect alone, but to the 
whole man : : . ‘ . 
(1) Thus reveals more ‘ 
(2) And has more power because in a Person 
appealing to a person 
6. Revelation for life. 
And through life 


APPENDIX 


PAGE 
247-249 
249 


250 
250, 251 


251-253 
253, 254 
254, 255 


257-275 


| 


Et iRevelation in Wature 


‘‘For God appears the greater to every man in proportion 
as he has grasped a larger survey of the creatures: and when 
his heart is uplifted by that larger survey, he gains withal a 
greater conception of God.’”’—ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM, com- 


menting on Wisdom xili. 5, Catecheses, ix, 2. 


‘* But though God conceal himself from the eyes of the 
sensual and lazy, who will not be at the least expense of 
thought ; yet to an unbiassed and attentive mind, nothing can 
be more plainly legible than the intimate presence of an all- 
wise Spirit, who fashions, regulates and sustains the whole 
system of being.” —BERKELEY, Of the Principles of Human 


Knowledge, cli. 


‘* Earth’s most exquisite disclosure, heaven’s own God in 
evidence !”——BROWNING, La Satszaz. 


‘* But this I do say, and would wish all men to know and 
lay to heart, that he who discerns nothing but Mechanism in 
the Universe has in the fatalest way missed the secret of the 
Universe altogether. That all Godhood should vanish out of 
men’s conception of this Universe seems to me precisely the 
most brutal error,—I will not disparage Heathenism by calling 
it a Heathen error,—that men could fall into. It is not true ; 
it is false at the very heart of it.’"—CARLYLE, Ox Heroes. 


“, . . ‘mid all this mighty sum 
Of things forever speaking.” 
—WoRDsWoRTH, Lxpostulation and Reply. 


pew VEE ATION IN NATURE 


I. BEFORE any written books was the book 
of nature. It has always lain open for men as 
a primer, wherein they were to learn to read 
their first lessons, deciphering its characters, 
spelling out the syllables, and guessing at 
the meaning. The material world has teach- 
ing for those who can read aright. 

That word, nature, it will not be here at- 
tempted to define with any exactness. The 
term carries with it various significations. 
With prescient vision Bishop Butler foresaw 
‘that persons’ notion of what is natural will 
be enlarged in proportion to their greater 
knowledge of the works of God, and the dis- 
pensations of his Providence.’’! Recent defi- 
nitions of nature have made its meaning large 
enough to include man. For example, the 
Duke of Argyll declared it to be ‘‘ but a word 
for the whole sum and system of intelligible 

1 The Analogy, Pt. I. chap. i. 


4 A REVELATION IN NATURE 


things.’’! Martineau wrote: ‘‘ Nature, in its 
original and largest sense, means the whole 
realm of things that are born, that enter and 
quit the field: of existence.’ * 

There is much to be said in favour of a widely 
comprehensive definition of nature. In this 
introductory lecture, however, and for the pur- 
poses of the present argument, the word is 
used in a more restricted sense, as meaning 
the material universe which men behold before 
them. Ia reference to our subject, therefore, 
let us understand by nature that system of 
phenomena existing over against the human 
nature which observes it. In that material 
world men have been wont to see indications 
of something else, which they have called spir- 
itual. And, at this stage of our argument, it 
will suffice if we understand this word, ‘spir- 
itual, to mean that which exists in distinction 
from things material. The world of material 
things, then, is spread out before men as an 
open book wherein they may read of things 
that are not material. 

He whom civilised peoples unite in regard- 


1 The Unity of Nature, chap. iii. 
2 The Seat of Authority in Religion, p. 302. 


AVKEV RELATION IN INATURE 5 


ing as the great Teacher appealed to nature, 
and thither resorted for material of instruc- 
tion. The parables, which made the staple of 
His teaching, were drawn from nature. With 
her laws, 


‘‘Her forms and with the spirit of her forms 
He clothed the nakedness of austere truth.” 


He was always comparing spiritual things to 
natural. ‘‘ The kingdom of heaven is like to 
a grain of mustard seed.’’ His discourse was 
of sun and sky, wind and rain and lightning, 
wheat and corn, vines and trees, lilies of the 
field and birds of the air, salt and leaven and 
oil, sowing of seed, harvesting, fishing, folding 
of sheep. 

Thus the Master set forth truth in pictures 
drawn from everyday observation of the outer 
world. He did this with touch of graphic 
power, that, after the lapse of centuries, is still 
felt to-day, because of a fact that is profoundly 
true, namely, that nature is symbolic. Things 
express thoughts and truths. Every language 
uses, for spiritual ideas, words which were first 
applied to material things. For instance, 
spirit was breath, or wind; right was straight ; 


6 A REVELATION IN NATURE 


wrong was that which was wrung or turned 
aside. There is an inherent relation of affin- 
ity between the material and the spiritual. 
Things correspond to thoughts. Through the 
natural world run lines of spiritual law. Be- 
neath all is an underlying reality, manifesting 
itself in the physical and in the spiritual, the 
one dominant theme, as it were, uttering itself 
now in lower and now in higher keys. That 
is not first which is spiritual, but that which 
is natural; then that which is spiritual. The 
spiritual is not merely like the physical; it 
is the higher, while the physical is the lower, 
expression. The spiritual is supremely the 
real, whereof the physical is the image and 
figure. There was the true, that is, the real, 
light. Iam the true, that is, the real, vine. 

For all the generations of mankind the outer 
world has had some inner and spiritual import. 
To the general conviction of a religious signifi- 
cance in nature, there is a mass of testimony to 
be adduced from the religions of the world, 
and from ancient philosophy and poetry.? The 
general fact is to be distinguished from par- 

1See Emerson, WVature, chap. iv. 

2 See Illingworth, Ze Divine Immanence, chap. i. 


ARREVELATION IN NATURE 7 


ticular interpretations of it. However men 
of varying race and religion may differ from 
each other as to precisely what they discern, or 
feel, behind nature; they none the less concur, 
and, for all their differences, thus all the more 
impressively concur, in the acknowledgment 
that there is something there, in the recog- 
nition of a presence and a power. Thus in 
no age has God left Himself without witness. 
Wherever there are eyes to see, there it is 
broadly true that ‘‘ the invisible things of him 
since the creation of the world are clearly 
seen, being perceived through the things that 
are made, even his everlasting power and 
divinity.”’ 

To come nearer to our own time, this con- 
viction regarding the material world has found 
impressive utterance in representative poets 
who have been the seers, the prophets and 
teachers, of their age. First of this goodly 
fellowship is Wordsworth. It is a little over 
a century since he wrote and, almost immedi- 
ately after, published, in 1798, ‘‘ Tintern Ab- 


>? 


bey. In that drearily conventional eigh- 
teenth century, here was a vox clamantis in 


deserto, a prophet of nature, proclaiming her 


8 A REVELATION IN NATURE 


tidings to men, teaching men to gather the 
harvest of a quiet eye. Notable, therefore, in 
the history of thought, as well as nobly true, 
are the often quoted lines: 


« And I have felt 
A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused, 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean and the living air, 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; 
A motion and a spirit, that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 


EA! | 


And rolls through all things. 


II. We have glanced at poetry first, because 
its testimony is simpler, that is, more direct 
and less studied. Let us turn from poetry to 
science. Exploring what we may call the mech- 
anism of the world, man finds himself able, in 
large measure, to explain how things therein are 
brought about, and to determine the results of 
viven forces. It is no matter for wonder that 
the first triumphant exultation over the mate- 
rial discoveries which signalised the nineteenth 
century plunged many investigators into a 


Tee. pps, DOES Ly 


A REVELATION IN NATURE 9 


materialism which had eyes for nothing but 
matter. -—Ihat, indeed, was’ a\result to be 
expected, when they studied in a way natural 
to them as men of science merely, confining 
themselves to the method of scientific analysis 
and to the minute investigation of isolated 
details apart from the vast and vital whole. 

Now, however, we begin to see the reaction. 
The pendulum swings over to the other side. 
Scientific men are leaving that one-sided mate- 
rialism far behind, and out of that blindness 
to anything but matter are groping toward a 
wider vision. Matter itself is now defined in 
terms of spiritual significance. In the ulti- 
mate researches of science, matter eludes her 
grasp, and seems to resolve itself into some- 
thing finer and subtler, which is almost spir- 
itual. We hear less about matter and more 
about potential and kinetic energy. The dis- 
covery of the correlation of physical forces, 
that light, heat, electricity, magnetism, and 
motion are convertible into each other, has 
brought us to the conception of one all-per- 
vading force, showing itself, like old Proteus, 
in manifold guise. Memorable are the words 
Pieter bert spencer: 


10 A REVELATION IN NATURE 


‘““Amid the mysteries which become the 
more mysterious the more they are thought 
about, there will remain the one absolute cer- 
tainty that he is ever in the presence of an 
Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all 
things proceed.’’! This omnipresent energy, 
manifested in all the processes of nature, is 
truly a mystery. 

If now we turn our view from outward 
things, within ourselves also we find the mys- 
terious fact of energy. There it is, as often 
as by our volition we move a muscle. It is 
only thus, in our own selves, that we have 
any immediate knowledge of the working 
of energy. Its working outside we interpret 
by what we know from observation within our- 
selves. From this inner force, which we know 
thus intimately in our volition, we form our 
notion of the energy in the outer world. We 
must think of the external energy in terms 
of the internal energy. There is no other 
way for us to think. Will is the first and 
last explanation of force. To quote Mr. Spen- 
cer again, ‘‘the Power manifested through- 
out the universe distinguished as material is 


1 Ecclesiastical Institutions, p. 843. See App., note 2. 


A REVELATION IN NATURE II 


the same power which in ourselves wells up 
under the form of consciousness.’’! Accord- 
ingly, we interpret by will the force into which 
science resolves matter and motion, and where- 
of the universe is a magnificent exhibition. 
Thus we rise to the conception of one infinite 
and eternal will, whose energy works at every 
moment, in each atom and every process of the 
vast whole, making it all one continuous crea- 
tion; the action of natural causes showing this 
ubiquitous energy at work, and natural laws 
being the regular ways and methods of its 
working. 

The creative process, in its inauguration and 
continuance, may well have a purpose which is 
suggested to us by further observation of our 
own volitions, the purpose, I mean, of self- 
expicssion, «AS we will the: movement of 
tongue and eye and hand, and thus express 
ourselves through matter, likewise there is 
self-expression of the Almighty in and through 
the material universe. In the only case where 
we ever do go behind the material phenomena 
and get, as it were, on the inner side of mat- 
ter, namely, in the case of our own selves, 

LTO Wa Naietey 


[2 A REVELATION IN NATURE 


our brain and body, there we find, behind the 
organic mechanism, something spiritual. As 
we have here, in the only case where we get 
behind matter, the outside view and the inside 
view, matter and spirit, mysterious in their cor- 
relation; so it is not unreasonable to believe 
that in other instances, throughout the rest of 
nature, there is also a* mysterious correlation 
of the outside view and the inner reality, that 
there also, beneath material things, is the 
power of living spirit. We ourselves, while 
consciously more than body, are yet present 
within the body and manifested thereby, so 
much so that one’s body is often called one’s 
person. Somewhat after that analogy may be 
the Almighty, while more than nature and by 
no means to be identified therewith, yet within 
nature; while not confined within nature, yet 
immanent therein and manifested thereby, so 
that natural forms and processes are to the 
seeing eye a self-expression of the presence 
and power within. 

Self-expression, indeed, is an essential char- 
acteristic of intelligence. Man is characteris. 
tically a speaking animal. He speaks because 
he thinks. His spiritual nature must find ex- 


I 


A REVELATION IN NATURE 13 


pression in word and look and gesture. It is 
not otherwise when we rise from the finite to 
the thought of spirit which is more than finite. 
It is essential to supreme spiritual being that 
it be not merely abstract idea and potential- 
ity, cold and lifeless and blank as ZGYOrabut 
that it be vital and active in a living process, 
somehow going out of self; fulness of power 
realising itself in manifestations of creative 
energy, fulness of life realising itself in im- 
parting of life, infinite spirit finding satis- 
faction and self-realisation in self-expression 
through processes of creation. 

In this view, nature is beheld in a divine 
unity, the lowliest flower of the field, as well 
as the heavenly firmament, declaring the glory 
of God and showing His handiwork. The 
progress of science, far from lessening this 
large and profound significance of the material 
universe, has, on the contrary, with those ages 
of past time and that unbounded reach of 
space, immeasurably widened its range and 
increased its depth, until nature has unfath- 
omed meaning in its witness to this Power 
creatively present within. Wheresoever its 
conquests advance, the march of science brings 


14 A REVELATION IN NATURE 


order in its train, the order of rational connec- 
tion, making the world the more intelligible, 
and, by so much the more, significant of the 
Being thus manifested to human intelligence. 
That spiritual significance remains whether 
one thinks things to have been fashioned by 
special creations, or to have become what they 
are by processes of development. In the lat- 
ter case God is not the less, in the words of 


¢¢ 


the Church’s ancient hymn, “‘ creation’s secret 


>? 


force.’’ It is, after all, only a question of 
how that creative force has wrought. Here 
it becomes necessary to touch upon the 
theory of evolution as a possible, and indeed 
probable, method of the divine operation. 
Thoughtful observers, it must be sranted, are 
abandoning the notion that the universe was 
mechanically fashioned, as a carpenter builds 
a house. Nature would seem to be not so 
much a product as a progressive process, not 
a mechanical production sharply finished off, 
but rather an organism, that has grown and is 
srowing, is still plastic and in continual move- 
ment, instinct with myriad manifestations of 
the one universal life. None the less, rather 
all the more, is it seen to be one coherent sys- 


A REVELATION IN NATURE 15 


tem, with its elements mutually related in a 
close family connection. 

Viewed in this organic oneness, nature is 
none the less fraught with evidence of mind 
and purpose. The old argument from design 
has, it is true, undergone a period of discredit. 
It is heavily discounted when it presents its 
petty coin, and unwarrantably and frivolously 
enters into trivial and puerile explanations 
of things. To instance an extreme exam- 
ple which has been frequently quoted, the 
author of ‘‘ Paul and Virginia,’’ in his ‘‘Stud- 
ies of Nature,’’ gravely suggests that fleas 
have been endowed with the instinct to 
jump on white colors in order that we may 
the more easily catch them.1 That discredit, 
however, has come only upon a poor and pal- 
try teleology. Evolution confronts us anew 
with purpose. It replaces, as Mr. Fiske has 
pointed out, as much teleology as it destroys. 
Science still employs teleological terms and 
phrases. It is obliged thus to use the lan- 
guage of purpose, and to ask ‘‘ what for.’’ 
There are many things which cannot be ex- 


*Cf. Janet, Final Causes, I. chap. vi. Martineau, A 
Study of Religion, vol. i. pp. 298, 299. 


16 A REVELATION IN NATURE 


plained except by thus referring them to de- 
sign. The purpose constantly sought and 
found by the botanist and the biologist is not 
less purpose that it is immanent, wrought into 
things and to be realised in their unfolding. 
Instinctively we look for purpose, and thus in- 
terpret nature. There is a persistent convic- 
tion that nature has this meaning for us to 
read. There would be no science were there 
not this rationality to be found in the consti- 
tution of things. Signs are not wanting that 
men of science are now more keenly appreci- 
ating this. 

The late Professor Romanes wrote: ‘‘ So to 
speak, wherever we tap organic nature it seems 
to flow with purpose.”’ Lord Kelvin, as Presi- 
dent of the British Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science, closed an address with 
the words, weighty from that eminent author- 
ity: ‘‘ The argument of design has been greatly 
too much lost sight of. . . . Overpoweringly 
strong proofs of intelligence and benevolent 
design lie around us;.. . and if, eversperm 
plexities, whether metaphysical or scientific, 
turn us away from them for a time, they come 
back upon us with irresistible force, showing 


AAREVELATION IN NATURE Ly 


to us through nature the influence of a free 
will.”’ 

Let it be observed here that, in our argu- 
ment, your attention is called not to particular 
purposes, but to the general fact of purpose, 
to the presence of power working toward the 
realisation of ends. The selection, which ac- 
cording to theories of evolution, is so largea 
factor in the evolutionary process, works upon 
the variations of nature, sifting out the vari- 
eticoetmateare tomsurvive., ) But. whence came 
Hie) variation ? * There lies’ the secret: of -the 
progress. Truly there is so much of purpose 
evident, that one may well cry out with the 
poet: 


‘‘O Thou, the one force in the whole variation 
Of visible nature,—at work—do I doubt? 
From Thy first to our last, in perpetual creation.”’! 


When, moreover, we rise to a large view of 
evolution, to contemplate its tendency and 
outcome; when we look upon the evolution- 
ary process as a mighty drama, and begin to 
see the plot, the movement, scope, and aim 
of the action, the majestic progress toward a 


1 Fust and His Friends. 


18 A REVELATION IN NATURE 


worthy dénouement; then we see design on a 
scale vast indeed. The mechanism of nature is 
everywhere subordinate in significance. From 
the mechanical explanation we rise to the in- 
terpretation and reason of things. A review of 
evolution as a whole discloses that the august 
process is supremely rational and full of pur- 
pose. There is no mere circling in aimless 
recurrence. The movement is spiral, always 
upward, with continual advance upon what 
was before. We see the successive develop- 
ment of divers kinds of being in an ascending 
series, unfolding progressive orders of ever 
richer and nobler life, exhibiting thus a ten- 
dency slowly but surely augmenting to a cul- 
minating grandeur. We trace herein a crea- 
tive purpose, prophesied for ages in typical 
forms, and at length fulfilled in the produc- 
tion of man, the crowning consummation, and 
in the training of his intellect and character 
toward spiritual perfection. 

Indeed Huxley took an exceedingly limited 
view when he asserted that ‘‘ the cosmic pro- 
cess has no sort of relation to moral ends.’’ 
Mr. Fiske is true to the deeper fact in his de- 
mand: “‘ Does not the cosmic process exist 


wm REVELATION, IN NALCURS 19 


purely for the sake of moral ends?”’ Surely, 
in this large view of its persistent tendency 
and its outcome, the entire process of evolu- 
tion is a continuous manifestation of highest 
purpose. It is a progressive revelation of a 
Power and a Wisdom ineffably sublime. 

Thus nature is seen in her true relations, 
vivified by the divine energy, and glorified by 
the divine presence and the divine purpose. 
In exploring the secrets of nature, man is dis- 
covering the thoughts of God as there mani- ° 
fested. Kepler said: “‘ I think Thy thoughts 
after Thee, O God.’’ Likewise, when Newton 
discovers the law of gravitation, or when Har- 
vey discovers the circulation of the blood, the 
discoverer is face to face with a revelation of 
the divine design. The discoveries of science 
have thus been readings of a revelation of the 
Almighty, even while they who confined their 
attention to a single page failed to apprehend 
the main drift of the whole great argument. 

The larger reading, meanwhile, has been 
saining more and more the attention of men 
Gimscicnce. “Wider, observation and deeper 
thought have brought not a little confirmation 
of the witness borne by the poets, as seers 


20 A KEV ELA TION «IN WNATORE 
who saw and told the spiritual significance of 
nature. 


‘‘ The sun, the moon, the stars, the sea, the hills and the 
plains— 
Are not these, O Soul, the vision of Him who reigns ?” 


Long, however, before Tennyson’s ‘* Higher 
Pantheism,’’ Wordsworth had struck the key- 
note to which the best thought of the century 
was slowly to accord itself. His aim, as he 
discoursed ‘‘on man, on nature, and on hu- 
man life,’’ was to express their concordant 
harmony. His dominant themes it is worth 
while at this point to note. They were these: 
the dignity of man apart from conventional 
and artificial surroundings, of man, that is, in 
close touch with nature; the unity of nature 
as man may contemplate her; the interaction 
between her varying aspects and the moods of 
his mind, in other words, the intimate affinity 
between man and nature: 


“How exquisitely the individual mind 
. to the external world 
Is fitted ; and how exquisitely, too, 
Theme this but little heard of among men, 
The external world is fitted to the mind.” 


A REVELATION IN NATURE 24 


Wordsworth continually sang the unity of the 
world, and man’s oneness with the world, in 
the living Being whence both proceed. This 
unity was his poetic creed which he laboured 
to set forth. Earnest and constant was his 
protest against whatever would sunder this 
unity, against that merely analytic spirit that 
would regard things only in separate isola- 
tion, 


‘Viewing all objects unremittingly 
In disconnection dead and spiritless ; 
And still dividing, 
Break down all grandeur, 


and dividing still, 


It is impressive to mark the recent move- 
ment of the best scientific thought toward a 
position not very far from that of the poet of 
nature. During these last decades the whole 
drift of science has been steadily toward a 
larger view, recognising a vital unity of the 
world, and a unity which is spiritual, recognis- 
ing, that is, nature as related to man, and find- 
ing in his spirit the interpretation, thus ex- 
plaining the lower by the higher. The poet’s 
prophetic soul confidently foresaw this change 
of attitude: 


PAa A REVELATION IN NATURE 


“Science then 
Shall be a precious visitant ; and then, 
And only then, be worthy of her name.” ? 


III. As we turn from the scientific view of 
nature, it is worth while for the lover of na- 
ture, at any rate, to take account of a message 
which natural beauty brings him. Beauty is 
a revelation through matter of some design 
transcending the physical. It is an expression, 
through material forms and mechanism, of a 
purpose that is other than a design of utility, 
that is more than any mechanical adaptation 
of part to part, or of organ for use. It is an 
expression, in the actual, of an ideal of per- 
fection. A spiritual ideal is revealed in each 
thing of beauty throughout nature, as truly as 
in a work of art, and its beauty is as truly an 
expression of mind. 

The beautiful is not only from mind, it is 
for mind. The man recognises and appreci- 
ates it, while the brute does not, because the 
recognition of beauty requires reason in the 
beholder. Beauty exists for mind. The beau- 
tiful in nature is an expression of reason, to be 
read by reason. It is a manifestation of some- 

The Excursion, Bk. TV. 


A REVELATION IN NATURE 23 


thing that addresses itself to one’s spirit. It 
is a spiritual appeal. It is a revealing of a 
spiritual principle in nature. It is a vision of 
something there that is akin to the soul in 
man. It is the glimpse, as it were, of a smile 
of affinity, recognition, and response, of under- 
standing and friendliness :— 


“. . . . far and wide the clouds were touched, 
And in their silent faces could he read 
Unutterable love.” 


Thus in any natural object that is beautiful 
there is at least a hint of something beyond 
itself. Though it be fair with a loveliness that 
fades and passes, yet there is the gleam of an 
ideal beauty that is changeless and eternal; 
there is a reminder of the Spirit unto whom 
shines forever the unfading splendour of that 
ideal. 

A man may have been overmastered by the 
material aspect of nature, he may have been 
so intent upon its mechanism, that he is blind 
to that spiritual significance we have already 
tracedwevetl in the scientific aspect. But for 
him, too, the revelation of beauty is some- 
thing he can receive. He yields himself to its 


24 A ‘REVELATION INV NATUKE 

spell. It charms and wins and quickens his 
dull sense to some higher perceptions of reali- 
ties transcending time and space. 

A man may have lost faith and hope. The 
mechanical order of the world, its unceasing 
round, its unchanging law, may press heavily 
upon his soul. Caught in its revolving mech- 
anism, he may be carried round in a resistless 
whirl of weary routine, having no hope and 
without God in the world. Even for such an 
one, a disclosure of beauty brings its joy. It 
means a truce and respite, rest and quiet 
breathing. It transmutes the depression of 
materialistic scepticism into a joyous certitude 
of something beyond matter :— 


sok. SVOS alia pire Oats 
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall 
From our dark spirits.” 


It matters not what particular manifestation of 
beauty it be, a wild flower, a winding stream, 
a rainbow, the uncounted laughter of the sun- 
lit waves, moonlight with its lane of mystic 
eleam far out upon the sea, the sunrise splen- 
dour, the sunset glow; these things and things 
like these bring us comfort, and the assurance 


A REVELATION IN. NATURE 25 


that there is behind nature somewhat where- 
with we have kinship, a Being we may trust. 
There come to us illumination and insight, 
benediction, peace, while we look through 
things that are seen and material to things that 
are immaterial and eternal, and have vision of 
a Spirit which is beauty, which is love. 

Akin to the message of beauty is the impres- 
sion of the sublime. Here there is an added 
suggestion of greatness, of the immensity of 
infinitude outreaching man. ‘The vast ocean, 
the boundless firmament, the innumerable 
stars—few can behold them and not be im- 
pressed with a certain awe, and moved by an 
impulse toward adoring worship. 

In these ways far into man’s heart may be 
carried the messages of nature. Not only in 
the music of the spheres, but throughout the 
natural realm, there is harmony for him who 
Mileicidediercateatide a. heart to “anterpret. 


‘ 


Truly, as Novalis wrote, ‘‘ nature is an xolian 


9? 


harp.’’ The chords are swept by no hand. 
But an unseen breath evokes tones that stir 
the deepest chords within us, till they too 
vibrate in response to that divine touch that 


has revealed the spiritual in the natural. 


20 A REVELATION IN NATURE 


IV. Thus the material creation is a primary 
word of God, through which is expressed the 
divine thought. It is not claimed that this 
view is attained without a certain predisposi- 
tion to start with. God’s thought is stamped 
into the very tissue and structure of nature, 
as into the paper its water-mark. As, how- 
ever, to see that, you have to hold the paper 
to the light, so likewise nature, in order that 
its divine impress may be discerned, has to be 
looked at in a certain way. 


«There are times 
I doubt not, when to you it doth impart 
Authentic tidings of invisible things,” 


But the tidings are imparted ‘‘ to the ear of 
faith.’’ It is faith that interprets the mani- 
festation. Even for the beauty of nature, one 
must have the eye to see; and that iniplies 
the heart to feel. As Wordsworth once said, 
“it is the feeling that instructs the seeing.”’ 
It requires an attitude in some sort religious 


to see in the rainbow to-day, as in the old time, 


a sacramental sign, to feel in “‘ the witchery of 


the soft blue sky’’ a means of grace, to re- 
ceive the message of the sunset as a benedic- 
tion from the clouds. 


ee Se -_— 


A REVELATION IN NATURE ay: 


We come again to what was remarked near 
the beginning. Nature is symbolic. Things 
express inner meaning. They are significant 
of thoughts. They are signs and symbols. 
They constitute a language in which the mes- 
sages of nature are communicated. It is, how- 
ever, a communication by cipher. One has to 
be possessed of the secret and have the key, 
in order to read the meaning. Faith is the 
key to the interpretation of that whereof this 
outward and visible system of things is an ex- 
pression. ‘‘ By faith we understand that the 
worlds have been framed by the word of 
God.”’ 

We have already compared nature to the 
body within which reside the spiritual pres- 
ence and power. In some respects a more 
apt comparison would be toa garment. This 
world is an outward and visible vesture of the 
Almighty Being. So it is conceived of in the 
Scriptures of the Old Testament. ‘“‘ Who 
coverest thyself with light as with a garment; 
who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain.”’ 
There is unfailing recognition of a presence of 
life and power eternal, that shall survive the 
outward and material forms, when those are 


28 A REVELATION IN NATURE 


but as a cast-off robe. ‘‘ They shall perish; 
but thou continuest: and they all shall wax 
old as doth a garment; and as a mantle shalt 
thou roll them up, as a garment, and they 
shall be changed: but thou art the same and 
thy years shall not fail.’’! The word ‘‘ na- 
ture’ does not occur in the Old Testament, 
because there was no such conception. For 
those Hebrew seers and poets, nature was 
nothing apart from God. At most it was His 
glorious apparel. Without Him, it had not 
shape or substance, as the garment has no sub- 
stantial form in itself, but only from the frame 
it clothes. Likewise also, we see that nature 
is an expression and manifestation of under- 
lying reality, as the folds of the vesture ex- 
press and reveal the lines of the form beneath. 
The showing is not to all alike. Some only 
touch the hem of the garment. For others, 
now and again, this material fabric and vesture 
of the visible world trembles and moves, as a 
curtain stirred by the breath of a viewless wind, 
whereof thou canst not tell whence it cometh 
and whither it goeth. 

Always behind the outward sign and symbol 


Pave, 26,27. Tes libs pddebade Tire, 


i a i i i i ee 


A REVELATION IN NATURE 29 


there is mystery. Nature is not only thus a 
vesture that expresses what is beneath; it is 
a vesture, moreover, that covers and veils. 
While to some degree it shows, it also hides. 
This has been felt by poets. Says Tennyson: 


“. . . . words, like nature, half reveal 
Ana half conceal the soul within.” 


Browning makes Bishop Blougram say: 


“Some think Creation’s meant to show him forth ; 
I say it’s meant to hide him all it can.” 


The poets are faithful to fact. Certain it is 
that those lessons of nature, whereon we have 
been dwelling, are not known and read of all 
men. Many do not read at all. Eyes have 
they, yet they see not. Others fail to read 
aright. It is quite possible that the vision 
of the wonder-working Deity, immanent in na- 
ture, may be ‘‘ missed in the commonplace of 
miracle.’ The light that makes manifest to 
some, for others may be a dazzling and blind- 
ing splendour. Kepler had to cry, ‘‘ I think 
Thy thoughts after Thee, O God!’’ because 
he was thinking mathematical truths, which are 
eternally true. On the other hand, for Comte, 


30 A REVELATION IN NATURE 


the heavens declared no other glory than that 
of Hipparchus, of Kepler, of Newton. JDar- 
win, to an assertion of obvious workings of 
mind in nature, replied impressively, ‘* That 
often comes over me with overwhelming force, 
but at other times it seems to go away.’’ 

There are facts in the merely physical pro- 
cess that are difficult to deal with. Nature 
seems often wastefully careless of life, sternly 
and mercilessly cruel, and utterly indifferent to 
moral ideals. It is a book wherein are some 
things hard to be understood. Like an old 
mystic text, it is not always easy to decipher. 

We have already dwelt upon the high and 
spiritual interpretation of the facts of nature. 
It was, however, an interpretation by the 
special insight of seers, poets gifted with the 
vision and the faculty divine, and mei like 
them who had hearts to feel and eyes to see, 
where others were blind and slow of heart. 
Nature isaveil. It needs somewhat of faith 
and hope to be able to enter into that which 
is within the veil. It demands a degree of 
spiritual discernment to read the spiritual sig- 
nificance of nature. 

Moreover, while some eyes are blind, on the 


A REVELATION IN NATURE 31 


other hand the material portion of the uni- 
verse should not be regarded as itself a fully 
adequate manifestation of the living Spirit of 
the whole. It is only the beginning of the 
revelation. In this first stage, so far as it is 
impersonal, we could not hope to find the 
highest evidence regarding that spiritual Being. 
There is need of something more. Fully to 
discern the spiritual significance of the world, 
and, beyond the things, truly to know the 
omnipresent Spirit, the knowledge must be 
conveyed in some nobler vehicle than mere 
things alone can be. In its very imperson- 
ality, nature is a vesture that largely veils. 
There is needed an unveiling, a revealing 
through the highest medium we know, namely, 
personality. 

Indeed, this higher revelation must be ex- 
pected, if the creation be viewed as a whole, 
and, especially, as a development advancing in 
ever fuller realisation of a divine purpose. If 
we thus regard the entire creative process as 
a progressive manifestation of the divine; if, 
furthermore, we find that process culminating 
in man, the roof and crown of things; we shall 
look to find a fuller manifestation through 


32 A REVELATION IN NATURE 


man, creation’s crowning consummation. We 
shall expect that, in this regard as in other re- 
spects, natural history shall be surpassed by 
human history, that the God manifested medi- 
ately through nature shall be more immedi- 
ately known in human nature. In its fore- 
going cycles creation abounds in hints of God. 
But these are foreshadowings, presages fraught 
with promise of things to come. 

Prophecy, indeed, is wrought into the very 
fibre of the fabric that is ever weaving in the 
loom of time. The manifestation in the finite 
must be progressive, because it is through 
that which is always in process of becoming; 
and this progressive unfolding can at no point 
be complete. Always there is something yet 
to come. | Moreover, nothing that is finite can 
fully reveal that which is infinite. The per- 
fectly revealing word of God must be a word 
which is before all things, which is eternal. 
The world abounds in sign and symbol of that 
which was before the foundation of the world. 
The material universe is vast. But there is 
something that is greater. This outward 
frame of things would seem itself to be set 
into an immeasurably larger plan. 


A REVELATION IN NATURE gig. 


The manifestation in nature, as regards what 
is revealed and what is concealed, is such as to 
warrant expectation of a further manifestation 
through something yet higher, that shall more 
worthily express One who is not only in all, 
but also above all. Nature is the primary rev- 
elation. In order, however, to read it aright, 
we must have illumination. We need not be 
surprised to find that the illumination wherein 
truly to read nature, and to see its divine sig- 
nificance, is a light that shines within, 


‘The light that never was on sea or land.” 
3 


lh 


HH iRevelation in Man 


“Though the whole fabric of this visible universe be whis- 
pering out the notions of a Deity, . . . yet we cannot 
understand it without some interpreter within. . . . It 
must be something within that must instruct us in all these 
mysteries, and we shall then best understand them, when we 
compare that copy which we find within ourselves, with that 
which we see without us. The schoolmen have well com- 
pared sensible and intelligible beings in reference to the 
Deity, when they tell us that the one do only represent vestigta 
Det, the other faciem Dei.”—Joun Situ, Of the Existence 
and Nature of God, chap. i. 


‘‘ Correct the portrait by the living face, 
Man’s God, by God’s God in the mind of man.” 
—BROWNING, Zhe Ring and the Book, X. 


‘“ Man’s mind, what is it but a convex glass 
Wherein are gathered all the scattered points 
Picked out of the immensity of sky, 
To reunite there, be our heaven for earth, 
Our known unknown, our God revealed to man?” 
—-Lbid. 


‘“ Communications spiritually maintained 
And intuitions moral and divine.” 
—WORDSWORTH, Zhe Excursion. 


ee ey Eee ONS Nee AN 


‘“ WHAT a piece of work,’’ exclaims Ham- 
let, ‘‘is a man! How noble in reason! how 
infinite in faculty!’’ If the subject of revela- 
tion be viewed only with regard to capacity of 
expression and fulness of significance, human 
nature is of sufficient importance to demand 
separate treatment. We have already seen 
that the visible universe spread out before us 
isa primary revelation of spiritual being. We 
have seen, moreover, that it is a revelation not 
without limitations. It expresses, but it also 
veils. Where it is not evidently a manifesta- 
tion, it is not because the supreme reality is 
motstnere- it 1s tather that, in order to:be 
there discerned, it must first become known 
through some higher medium. In material 
things, so far as they in any measure embody 
or suggest it, the self-expression of the Al- 
mighty Being is only begun. It is more fully 
continued in human life. 


38 A REVELATION IN MAN 


Recent researches of science have found 
much evidence of man’s unity with nature. 
When we have surveyed, however, the entire 
creative process and the successive steps of the 
ascending series leading up to him, and when 
we have granted the force of all that may be 
alleged to show man to be a part of nature, 
the fact remains that in him we see something 
new upon the old stem. Because rooted in 
the divine, nature here flowers out into the 
spiritual. Howsoever and whensoever it got 
there, there is a spirit in man. With him 
there begins another stage of that long process 
of divine self-expression. ‘‘ That is not first 
which is spiritual, but that which is natural; 
then that which is spiritual.’’ And this in- 
evitable priority of the natural, and sequence 
of the spiritual, must have held true at the 
very beginning of the revelation to primitive 
man. ‘Since revelation is essentially a disclo- 
sure of spirit, a fully adequate medium of its 
communication is not to be found in material 
nature. Where a material thing reveals to 
sense, as a sign and symbol, it must, as a veil, 
also hide. For spirit cannot be revealed im- 
mediately to physical sense. ‘‘ No man hath 


A REVELATION IN MAN 39 


seen God at any time.’’ Spirit must reveal 
itself to spirit.} 

I. Hence it becomes necessary in this lecture 
somewhat to consider the essential spiritual 
nature of man. It is by reason of this essen- 
tial nature that in man, although finite, there 
may be a revelation of the infinite. It is be- 
cause he is not a creature of the senses only, 
amere animal. It is because there is a spirit 
in man. Here, upon this bank and shoal of 
time, his soul is not shut in by bounds of 
time. With far vision he looks before and 
after. The pebbles on the beach do not sat- 
isfy him. He thinks truths which are eternal. 
He conceives, and aspires to realise, infinite 
ideals. He rises above sensual to spiritual 
things, and from the individual to the uni- 
versal. It is given him to look beyond the 
things which are seen and temporal, and to 
contemplate things which are unseen and 
eternal. 

Man can have no knowledge of the outward 
world except as through the senses that know]- 
edge has been manifested to him. If this 
necessity of a revelation from without be true 


1 See App., note 3. 


4O A REVELATION IN MAN 


of the physical world, it is even more true of 
the spiritual world. Far beyond one’s knowl- 
edge of ordinary things is a true knowledge of 
the Supreme Being. Such knowledge must 
come in the way of impression, influence, or 
disclosure from that Being. There can be no 
knowledge of God except as He reveals Him- 
self. The human mind does not work in iso- 
lation, apart from the divine, independent and 
unaided. “‘ There is a spirit in man: and the 
inspiration of the Almighty giveth them under- 
standing.’’ <A divine element enters, a coeffi- 
cient factor, into all the knowledge. Discov- 
ery and revelation are respectively the obverse 
and reverse, the human and divine sides, of the 
same process. That a man sees implies that 
there comes to him light to see by. Man’s 
reasoning is a partaking of that divine light 
and a proceeding therein. It were vain to 
attempt to draw a line of sharp demarcation 
here and separate the divine from the human. 
Both are present and work together. Thus 
we are brought to consider the intuitions, as 
a sphere of God’s self-revelation to the spirit 
of man. To oppose intuitive knowledge to 
divine revelation is to make a false dilemma. 


A REVELATION IN MAN AI 


In His light do we see light. Without it we 
could not see. Our knowledge implies on 
God’s part some manifestation. In the words 
of Frances Power Cobbe, “‘ our intuition is 
odesstiition 4 

Such divine disclosure there is in the very 
constitution of human nature, in its primary 
intuitions. Of these intuitions a man may be 
only vaguely conscious. Plainly to see them 
may require that his attention be directed to 
them and concentrated thereon. But looking 
steadily within, he sees something graven there 
in the inner chambers of his soul. Another 
may interpret for him the writings on the wall. 
A human finger may trace out the inscriptions 
and decipher all their meaning. But it is no 
human hand that wrote them there. They 
belong to the very structure, the original de- 
sien and framework, of his mind. They may 
not always at once be recognised. But once 
recognised they cannot be got rid of. They 
are, howsoever in any mind Jatent and dor- 
mant, yet 

‘¢Truths that wake 


To perish never.” 


1 Intuitive Morals, p. 22. 


42 A REVELATION IN MAN 


Let us begin then with the primal certainty, 
certainty of one’s own self. 


“T profess 
To know just one fact—my self-consciousness.” ! 


Now in one’s consciousness of self there is in- 
volved, vaguely though it be, implicitly if not 
explicitly, the consciousness of something else. 
Not far off, as in Purgatory Dante discerned 
the trembling of the sea, but very nigh to us, is 
‘’ that immortal sea which brought us hither.”’ 
Each of us, I venture to say, in more serious 
moments, even amidst his daily life, has felt 
how thin a plank separates him from the great 
deep on whose unfathomed waters is borne 
the frail bark of his consciousness. If you en- 
deavour by effort to make clear your conscious- 
ness of self, you will find that you cannot thus 
think of yourself without distinguishing your- 
self from something other than self. You can- 
not think of yourself except as related to, and 
limited by, that something not yourself. You 
cannot isolate yourself absolutely. There is 
always something else there. You cannot 
make yourself the foreground of a mental pic- 


‘ Browning, /rancis Furini, X. 


; 
, 
; 
; 


A REVELATION IN MAN 43 


ture without that background. Howsoever dim 
and in the shadow, none the less it is always 
there. And it must be there. It is not an 
accident. It is an essential element of the 
picture. It is not the mere presence of uncon- 
scious nature that thus limits and _ presses 
upon, encompasses and sustains, our self-con- 
sciousness. Here, in our deeper self-conscious- 
ness, is revealed Another and a mightier than 
self. Over against finite self rises the infinite. 

Of this absolute power thus manifested, Mr. 
Herbert Spencer says: “‘ We find that its 
positive existence is a necessary datum of con- 
sciousness; that so long as consciousness con- 
tinues, we cannot for an instant rid it of this 
datum; and that thus the belief which this 
datum constitutes has a higher warrant than 
any other whatever.’’! This consciousness of 
that Being may, I repeat, be indefinite. A 
man may refuse to make that effort of con- 
centration and may deny this element of con- 
sciousness. But, in any case, I do not believe 
aman ever entirely shakes off this presage of 
the infinite and eternal, which is inherent in all 
deeper thought. That solemn background of 

1 First Principles, Pt. I. p. 98. 


A4 A REVELATION IN MAN 


consciousness may lie in deep shadow, but at 
any moment it may become palpably felt. 
On lonely mountain top, or in the stillness of 
the night, it may make the silence oppressive, 
sometimes terrible. As Mr. Spencer con- 
fesses, it cannot be got rid of. One with- 
draws into himself, seeking the fastness of his 
own personality, and he does not find him- 
self alone. The farther we penetrate into the 
innermost recesses of our being, the nearer do 
we find Him in whom we live and move and 
have our being. A profound and intimate 
consciousness of self ushers one into an august 
and awful presence. .It is not merely ‘‘ I.’’ 
It is God and I, seeing He is not far from 
every one of us, is in very truth nearer to our 
innermost self than is any part or function of 
our external and physical self. 


“Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands 
and feet.” 


In our self-consciousness, we thus encounter 
a mysterious limit in the consciousness of An- 
other and greater than self. So also, in our 
self-determination, when we come to exercise 
volition, here again we find that certain bounds 


A REVELATION IN MAN 48 


are set to our choice and action. For another 
primary intuition of human nature is the obli- 
gation to follow the right and not the wrong. 
Various theories about the nature and origin 
of conscience, into which it is not my purpose 
to enter, have arisen from attempts to analyse 
and explain what admits of no such explana- 
tion. Just as a primary chemical element, 
while it enters into many combinations, can- 
not itself be decomposed into simpler constitu- 
ents, so this sense of obligation cannot be 
resolved by analysis into other and simpler 
things. It is no compound of experiences in 
one’s own life or in the lives of one’s ancestors. 
It isa simple and primary element in the consti- 
tution of human nature. It may be explained 
how it has come to be that men think certain 
particular things are wrong and other particu- 
lar things right. But the sense of obligation 
regarding the things that seem right, and the 
persistent constancy of that sense, howsoever 
the things that seem right may vary, cannot 
be explained away. It is not that those things 
will benefit one or the wrong acts injure one. 
The sense of obligation often seems to run 
counter to what is one’s evident interest. In 


40 A REVELATION IN MAN 


reality it takes no account of interest at all; it 
moves on a different plane. Nor again is it 
because of the effect upon others. One may 
persuade himself that an act would benefit 
others, and still conscience may warn there- 
from. The age-long growth of social instincts 
fails to explain the behests of conscience that 
are no less sternly distinct where no social 
law is involved and no other human being 
affected. 

This is the highest thing within man’s na- 
ture. It is the queen of all his faculties. It 
is the fact of chief import to his life. All else 
is of secondary value, and, if need be, to be sac- 
rificed. Life itself exists for the ends which 
this faculty apprises man of. Thus there is 
here declared a purpose for life, that it shall 
be always and at all cost good and true. If 
this sense of right and wrong has any mean- 
ing, it means such purpose. That purpose is 
not to be identified with one’s own desire or 
choice. It is often directly contrary to desire 
and choice. It is plainly distinct from one’s 
own purpose. For it not seldom comes into 
conflict with one’s purposes, and demands that 
they give way. 


| 


tt ies ee 


‘ 
———— 


A REVELATION IN MAN 47 


There is here more than purpose. There is 
authority. This faculty is not only of royal 
rank, but.is, in fact, a reigning queen, upon a 
throne and wielding a sceptre. It not merely 
advises and warns, it dictates and commands. 
It speaks not of interest, which is optional, 
but of duty, which is imperative. It asserts 
mer rmeht to rules vit is\not-aiself-rule. It 
asserts authority over the will and a supreme 
control over life. It is not so much that men 
possess the moral sense. It is rather that the 
moral sense possesses them, and holds them in 
the grasp of a rule that transcends all else, 
that transcends time, dealing with deeds of 
past years as of yesterday, and bringing a 
presage of relations that are eternal. 

This sense of obligation is so clothed with 
authority, it is so imperative, commanding so 
unconditionally,—not do right in order to be 
happy, but,—do right without regard to inter- 
est, do right though you suffer for it, do right 
whatever happen, frat justitia, ruat celum , it 
is so august and absolute in its demands; that 
man is here confronted with absolute sover- 
eignty. No human origin suffices to explain 
the royalty wherewith duty issues those flats. 


48 A REVELATION IN MAN 


Her mien of majesty bespeaks a loftier lineage, 
and stamps her as 


«Stern daughter of the voice of God.” 


It is not that the majestic claim of right, as 
against wrong, has its validity by reason of 
divine command. It is eternally and essen- 
tially valid. The moral has its seat not in the 
will of God but in the being of God. It is not 
that once in a while, of a particular act, there 
is in the dictate of conscience a “‘ thus saith 
the Lord.’’’ But, every hour of life, the fact 
of conscience is evidence that one is all the 
while in relations with a higher than self. 
From the sense of those relations, progress 
in goodness brings no escape. The further 
men attain in character, and the holier they 
become, so much the clearer, on those heights 
of saintliness, is their conviction of One who in 
perfection forever zs all whereunto they may 
only aspire. It is in this conviction of a for- 
ever realised Best, that they strive after the bet- 
ter Its mastering pressure it is, that impels 
men onward and upward. Its ‘‘ must”’ is an 
‘‘ought.’’ There is no constraint of physical 
necessity. One can obey or disobey as he 


EOE ——————————— 


A REVELATION IN MAN 49 


may choose. This freedom of choice, in the 
face of absolute demand, only intensifies the 
sense of being on trial, and under scrutiny and 
judgment. 

The sense of moral obligation is attended 
by manifestations of emotion, shame, remorse, 
fear, which imply relations to Another, to 
whom self is by the obligation bound, to 
whom I ought, that is, I owe it. Why, other- 
wise, should one feel that which Cardinal New- 


66 


man has described as “‘a lively sense of re- 
sponsibility and guilt, though the act be no 
offence against society,—of distress and ap- 
prehension, even though it may be of present 
service to him,—of compunction and regret, 
though in itself it be most pleasurable,—of 
confusion of face, though it may have no wit- 
nesses’’ 2?! ‘‘ The wicked flee when no man 
pursueth.’’ These inner experiences have 
been the terrible theme of tragedies: Orestes 
wandering in terror from land to land, pursued 
by furies; Macbeth’s heart haunted by horror; 
Richard, in visions of the night, when all his 
crimes sit heavy on his soul. 


1 Grammar of Assent, Pt. I. chap. v. sec. I. See App. 
note 4. 


4 


50 A REVELATION IN MAN 


These experiences of inner life testify to an 
eternal good, which is within one and yet is not 
one’sself. The fact of conscience makes itself 
known 


‘‘As God’s most intimate presence in the soul.” ! 


It is the manifestation, within men’s nature, of 
One with whom they havetodo. Here, haply, 
they might feel after him and find Him. Here, 
indeed, He finds them. Here He is not far 
from every one of them, besets them behind 
when they do not see Him before, and lays 
His hand upon them. 


This is no attempt, let it be observed, to 
demonstrate the existence of God. Such at- 
tempt would be beside our purpose. It were 
an undertaking, moreover, which would be of 
little avail. Some things are too true for for- 
mal proof. A thing may be proved by estab- 
lishing it on some deeper truth, and that again 
be shown to rest on some wider and under- 
lying truth. This process of finding one truth 
beneath another must eventually reach bottom 
in some immediate knowledge, which has noth- 


1 The Excursion, iv. 


A REVELATION IN MAN 51 


ing deeper to rest on, and which is thus too 
fundamentally true to be proved, because it 
underlies all proof. It can only be shown thus 
to underlie all. The truth of the divine exist- 
ence is not a mathematical demonstration, or 
the conclusion of an argument according to 
logical method. It is the ground principle, 
which makes demonstration possible, and 
whereon thinking must be based. Browning 
says of God and soul: 


“Prove them facts? that they o’erpass my power of 
proving proves them such: 
Fact it is I know I know not something which is fact 
as much,.} 


One cannot by syllogistic reasoning demon- 
strate the existence of God any more than he 
can his own existence. Like his own exist- 
ence, the existence of God is a fact disclosed in 
man’s primary intuitions. 

We have considered these two primary in- 
tuitions, self-consciousness and the sense of 
moral obligation. To-day we see the con- 
sciousness of self, and the moral sense, in many 
persons highly developed; and from such ob- 


t La Satsiaz. 


52 A REVELATION IN MAN 


servation it is perhaps easy to conclude that in 
these intuitions there is a divine manifestation 
within man. 

These intuitions, however, by no means ex- 
haust the capacity of human nature. There is 
more there than can be thus, or in any wise, 
enumerated and described. Man is greater 
than he knows. The sphere of divine influ- 
ence and expression in man, it must be noted, 
is not circumscribed within the limits of his 
consciousness, and is larger and deeper than 
any of its measuring lines. There is much in 
human nature that lies beneath the surface, 
unexplored and mysterious. The region of 
the unconscious, or rather sub-conscious, can- 
not be left out of the account. Hartmann, 
Murphy, Maudsley and others have brought 
to light how much conscious mind owes to 
spontaneous, unobserved and unconscious ac- 
tivity. Aside from any hypotheses which 
have been built upon them, there are incon- 
testible facts which go to show the impor- 
tance of the sub-conscious. Ever and again 
it surprises observation with the results of 
processes whereof nothing has been perceived. 
Thence, out of unfathomed depths below con- 


A REVELATION IN MAN 53 


sciousness, experiences may emerge and be- 
come sensible, manifested at first only slightly 
and by slow degrees more and more, like the 
ripples of a tide that rises from the great deep. 

Therefore, there may be, and always must 
have been, within human nature, conditions of 
transition from the sub-conscious to the con- 
scious, giving impressions and notions not yet 
fully defined, implicit rather than explicit, 
more or less obscure and vague. It is, then, 
not surprising that the intuitions of God, in 
some men, particularly in men unaccustomed 
to reflection, should be inadequate and ill- 
defined, confused and obscure. None the 
less, although not shaped into adequate con- 
ceptions, and still less clearly defined in words, 
and, indeed, in many minds only latent, such 
intuitions of a superhuman power and ma- 
jesty are present. They belong to human 
acures 

All this is not without bearing upon the re- 
mote inception of revelation in human history. 
In attempting any conjecture regarding the 
beginning of revelation in man, it must be 
remembered that the question has to do with 


1 See App., note 5. 


54 A REVELATION IN MAN 

man as he was at those times of beginning. 
It concerns, that is, primitive man, with his 
very simple and unreflecting sense of self, his 
rudiments of a moral sense, or conscience, and 
with all those undeveloped portions of his na- 
ture, including much altogether below his con- 
sciousness. 

There have been attempts to account for 
the idea of God by reference to primitive mis- 
interpretation of the phenomena of sleep and 
dreams and death, to belief in ghosts, worship 
of ancestors, worship of natural objects, fetich- 
ism, and like errors and hallucinations. The 
idea itself, however, does not consist in or de- 
pend upon such things, for in human progress, 
as such things are left behind, only the more 
clear and commanding has become the idea of 
God. We might expect its early manifesta- 
tions among primitive peoples, in the child- 
hood of the race, to have been often gro- 
tesquely crude and childish, with far from 
adequate realisation, and in rude forms and 
methods. 

It is not my purpose to enter in detail into 
the question of the historic beginning of a 
human consciousness of God. It would seem 


A REVELATION IN MAN 56 


to have been by stages parallel with the first 
human consciousness of self. But who may 
trace unerringly the modes and methods of 
those far-away men’s deepest thinking, or at 
this distance read all their hopes and fears? 
Who may tell how the great light first came 
to the primeval man, whether by a sudden 
flash or by a slow and gradual dawn? My 
present purpose is to call attention to the fact 
that in man, as early as we find him, the light 
is already there. As soon as man was worthy 
to be called man, we find him, however vaguely 
yet earnestly, acknowledging the hold religion 
had upon him, amidst how-much-soever super- 
stition nevertheless genuinely moved by senti- 
ments of dependence and awe, and evidently 
believing in power, not of man, that made itself 
known to him. 

Let criticism detect in those prehistoric men 
whatever there was of childishness and error, 
@iiemyths soft superstition. “)Aiter- the ‘most 
searching investigation, there will be left, I 
venture to assert, a residuum, an elemental 
something that cannot be explained away, a 
sense of dependence, a sense of obligation, 
that is in reality the same with that which we 


56 A REVELATION IN MAN 


have been considering as essentially character- 
istic of human nature. There will be left 
something that, however limited in degree, was 
in kind identical with our deepest thoughts and 
feelings. There were the beginnings, although 
feeble, that were rudiments and prophecies of 
the convictions that dominate men to-day. 
There were the seed-germs that were to expand 
and grow into religions that should fill the 
earth. There was the light there, however 
faint, that was to shine more and more unto 
the fulness of the day. 


II. In these primary convictions of man, in 
these intuitions of a power and righteousness 
more than human, in these spontaneous deliv- 
erances within his own nature, revelation has 
its sphere; and here it began. Here God 
touched and laid hold of men. Here He left 
Himself not without witness. Here He mani- 
fested His light as they were able to receive it. 
Here, before the beginning of history, in those 
remote and buried ages, wherever there have 
been men with hearts and consciences and 
wills, He has been revealing Himself. As we 
have already observed, it is the essential char- 


A REVELATION IN MAN a7 


acteristic of spirit to reveal itself. No apter 
language could be found than is employed in 
the prologue of the Fourth Gospel to describe 
the divine Logos, or Reason, that was eternally 
with God, uttering itself, first, in the processes 
of creation: ‘‘ All things were made through 
Him, and without Him was not anything 
made. That which has been made was in 
Piimeite, “+ “Asathere wastethat ‘expression 
through created things, so there was, moreover, 
manifestation at length in human nature, “‘ and 


’ 


fiewliteswas the light of meni) #So0 nears 
God to man, so closely does infinite spirit in- 
vest the human spirit, that, as a wise man said 
of old, ‘‘ the spirit of man is the candle of 
the Lord, searching all the innermost parts.’’ 
This candle is lit from the living source of 
light, that Word, or self-expression, of God. 
“There was the true light which lighteth 
every: man. ¢ 

We are seeking, so far as we may from a 
human standpoint, what we might call the 
rationale of revelation. We are asking these 
questions: How, on the human side, did it 


become a factor in the history of mankind? 


POCeLAD py note10, 


58 A REVELATION IN MAN 


What was the law and what the method of 
its procedure? How came particular men to 
be the recipients and the instruments of reve- 
lation ? 

One is not externally seized by revelation 
arbitrarily or accidentally, like a man struck by 
lightning. Within the man, far in the depths 
of his nature, shines some light that makes 
manifest. To that inner light one man will 
be blind where another is open-eyed and at- 
tent. One man will reverence and cherish in 
himself the light, that in another is slighted or 
ignored until the light that is in him is dark- 
ness. Thus one man comes to have less of 
this inner light than another. In the one it 
fades and fails while in the other it grows, be- 
cause it is the light of life. Here, as through- 
out life, operates the divine law, unto every 
one that hath shall be given. According asa 
gift is received and by use developed, in that 
measure is there the increase of supply. One 
man hides his light or rudely puts it out. An- 
other lets it come and pass unheeded. Still 
another cherishes no vision, but suffers the light 
to remain dim and mystic, solemn but indis- 
tinct. But another is earnestly faithful to the 


A REVELATION IN MAN 59 


best light that visits him. Alert and watchful, 
he looks and learns and broods, receptive of 
vision, until, emerging from the shadow, things 
stand out in ever stronger light; and this man, 
seeing, becomes the seer. Yet it is the one 
light that lighteth every man. As the light of 
day is the same in each several recess where 
penetrate its rays, whether less or more, and in 
them all is one with the light of the sun in the 
sky; so this light is the same in each man, and 
in all it is the light of God. 

Herein, in this common fact of the true 
light lightening all and, to that end, ever com- 
ing into the world, lies the possibility that one 
man’s experience may become the common 
possession of many. The light cherished and 
fostered within one man cannot be hid, but 
sends out its beams to other men, making that 
mana shining light. The light that is in him 
spreads itself in vibrations, as it were, through 
the surrounding ether and becomes the illu- 
mination of his generation. So the subjective 
in the individual tends to become general and 
objective. So an inner revelation gets itself 
out among men, takes outward shape in the 
world, gets a hold and a footing there, and be- 


60 A REVELATION IN MAN 


comes a force to be estimated, a perceptible 
movement in history. 

“And the light shineth in the darkness: 
and the darkness overcame it not.’’! It isa 
vivid sketch of one aspect of human history: 
light and darkness together in the world, often 
seemingly confused, but really face to face in 
continual conflict, the dark not all at once dis- 
pelled and sometimes seeming triumphant, but 
the light after all never wholly overshadowed; 
light shining into darkness that has not pre- 
vailed against it, but has ever farther and far- 
ther retreated before it, so that the course of 
history has been a slow but surely gaining 
dawn. The light not merely appears. It 
shines, sending out its rays into the dark. 
The verb is in the present tense. There is 
one long illumination in an unceasing stream 
of energy, breaking in even where there is 
thick darkness. From no man is the illumina- 
tion altogether withheld. There is no race of 
men that has not been sensible of a light 
other than the light of common day; no race 
amongst which may not be discerned, not- 
withstanding all shadows, at least scattered 

*St. John i. 5. See R. V. margin. 


A REVELATION IN MAN 61 


rays, which are but broken lights of the true 
light that lighteth every man. Ever and again 
among men there has been a brightening into 
flashes of especial splendour. 

Thus revelation, as regards its source and 
power, is not of earth, but supernatural and di- 
vine. It becomes, however, naturalised upon 
earth in human history. As it is a revelation 
for mankind, it is to be traced not in the secret 
depths of the isolated individual soul, but as it 
has made its way in the history of men. For 
it has made its way. On the historic side, it 
exhibits degrees and stages of realisation, and 
so admits of and implies progress from less to 
more. This progress, which, notwithstanding 
instances of retrogression, is, on the whole, 
plainly. to be discerned, is a: characteristic 
mark of human history. It stamps history as 
a long and progressive education of mankind. 
Thus more and more clearly there is expres- 
sion of the divine thought in history. In its 
persistent onward course there may be traced, 
through the rise and fall of empires and all 
outward vicissitudes, a movement of manifes- 
tation, disclosing the plan and purpose of a 
Power making for righteousness. In_ this 


62 A REVELATION IN MAN 


aspect the disclosure is an evolution. The 
Power that wrought hitherto in the processes 
of physical nature has, since the appearance 
of man, been manifestly marching on, through 
the progressive unfolding of human history. 


III. The tendency of the entire evolution 
leads us to look, at some point to see, on some 
particular line, a still further unfolding of reve- 
lation. This further unfolding in human his- 
tory, like all development, we should expect 
would be by processes of differentiation and 
specialisation. Thus we come to a _ special 
line of historic development which we know as 
the revelation. This special revelation is not 
out of line with the entire evolution. All 
foregoing history leads up to it. 

In the interests of the special revelation, it 
has been sometimes attempted to deny the 
reality or value of earlier and preparatory 
stages in the long history of God’s dealing 
with men, as if He had introduced a revela- 
tion abruptly into the world. Indeed, some 
have practically rejected, as meaningless and 
worthless, all that came before the Christian 
Gospel. Such positions betray not only an in- 


A REVELATION IN MAN 63 


adequate recognition of the solidarity of man- 
kind and of acertain unity in its history, but even 
a lack of faith in a living God of all history. 
The honour, the distinctive significance, the 
supreme value of the revelation as consum- 
mated in Christ do not depend upon denial or 
disparagement of the measure of truth to be 
found in religions of other names. Indeed, 
the appreciation of the consummate revelation 
is enhanced by showing that in a sense it com- 
pletes with fulfilment those ethnic religions, 


‘«« All with a touch of nobleness, despite 
Their error, upward tending all, though weak.” 


There, too, with the error, was somewhat of 
God’s truth. There, too, was real religion. 
St. Augustine goes so far as to say: “‘ The 
very thing which now is called the Christian 
religion was among the ancients, nor has it 
been wanting from the beginning of the race 
Olamen. 1 

It is one light which lighteth every man, 
coming into the world, shining more and 
more, but glimmering even in the starlight, 
however faint it be, of heathenism. Indeed, 


1 See App., note 7. 


64 A REVELATION IN MAN 


as there are not only the visible and coloured 
rays of the solar spectrum but also, beyond 
their range, the invisible chemical rays; so the 
true spiritual light has wrought effects even 
where it has not been seen and recognised as 
light at all. 

While this is so, not less true is it that there 
is the sun and there is the growing splendour 
of his dawning. There was the gradual and 
historic progress of the special revelation. 


| The special revelation proceeded by selection 


of a certain race, fitness and aspiration deter- 
mining the inspiration and mission of a spe- 
cially gifted people to develop to perfection, 
and transmit, the idea of one holy God. In 
their history was given the revelation. It was 
not independent of their recipiency and spir- 
itual activity. It was not all at once, and me- 
chanically, communicated to them out of the 
sky, but was unfolded through 


‘Communications spiritually maintained” 


in the course of a long history, exhibiting a 
eradual process of development. Thus, as we 
have seen in the first lecture that the entire 
evolution was a revelation, we now see that 


A REVELATION IN MAN 65 


this special revelation was in its progress an 
evolution. 

To speak of the evolution of revelation is 
by no means to explain it away. It is not to 
make it a merely mechanical process or inevi- 
table natural outgrowth. There is here that 
which cannot be thus accounted for. It is 
not to bring this history under the iron neces- 
sity of physical law, nor is it to deny therein 
sudden departures, as it were leaps and bounds, 
into new epochs. As in the foregoing organic 
development there was again and again—for 
example, at the advent of life and of thought 
—a sudden advance to something new and 
strange which, relatively to what had gone 
before, was supernatural; so, in this unfolding 
revelation, the natural is only the more mar- 
vellously surpassed. There is now and again 
to be seen the result of the operation of new 
and original elements and of creative factors 
advancing upon all that went before. The 
old did not cause the new. It led up thereto 
and was therein fulfilled. But in its fulfil- 
ment it was also transcended. 

What is implied by the term evolution is 
that the method of the progress here was the 

5 


66 A REVELATION IN MAN 


method of historic movement, characterised 
by the vital unity and continuity of the force 
that organised and impelled it. There was, 
however, let it be observed, movement, which 
while historic and continuous, none the less 
advanced through the ages from stage to stage, 
from old to new, in manifest progress toward 
a crowning consummation. This movement 
forward must not be forgotten or ignored.! 
Indeed, it is in this positive advance that there 
was manifestation of the supernatural, while 
more and more men were gaining the knowl- 
edge of God, as they now and again caught a 
flash and a gleam 


“From worlds not quickened by the sun.” 


* See App., note 8. 


# 


11 


El iRevelation Chat Reveals 


‘“One of the many superstitions which . . . are prac- 
tised with the idea of the infinite (often with the mere word 
itself), owing to its importance being very much over-esti- 
mated, is the notion that the infinitude of God makes any 
adequate idea . . . of Him impossible. But is it not a 
matter of indifference to the mathematician, in his idea of 
the line, whether the length of that line is limited or whether 
it stretches on into the infinite?”—RICHARD ROTHE, Si#//e 
Stunden. : 


‘* Belief I define to be the healthy act of a man’s mind. It 
is a mysterious indescribable process, that of getting to 
believe ;—indescribable, as all vital acts are. We have our 
mind given us, not that it may cavil and argue, but that it may 
see into something, give us clear belief and understanding 
about something, whereon we are then to proceed to act.”— 
CARLYLE, Ox Heroes. 


‘* What height, 
What depth has escaped Thy commandment—to Know ?” 
—BROWNING, “ust and His Friends. 


‘* Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
But more of reverence in us dwell—” 


—ZlJn Memoriam. 


vai INDE TIES aVIPIORN, Iie Bata 
REN EAS 


I. IT would seem to be essential to the idea 
of a genuine revelation that it really reveal, so 
that, at some stage of the process, truth be 
made known. Here must be met the question 
whether the truth of God can be made known, 
or, in other words, whether men can receive 
the knowledge of such truth. We enconnter 
the position of those who assert that, for the 
human mind, a real knowledge of God is im- 
possible. This position, it is evident, ques- 
tions the possibility of revelation. It would 
allow no room for a genuine revelation at all. 
We must therefore face the question: Is a 
revelation possible ? 

The position just referred to claims the sup- 
port of eminent names in philosophy. A dis- 
cussion of the critical philosophy of Kant it 
is impossible here to enter upon, nor am | 
fitted for the task. The great philosopher of 


70 A REVELATION THAT REVEALS 


Konigsberg certainly brought in a new era of 
thought. He thus made, however, an epoch, 
not, as is often supposed, in his limitation of 
human knowledge. For, in this, he followed 
in the beaten track of Locke, Berkeley, and 
Hume. Knowledge, according to Kant, does 
not get beyond the appearances of things. To 
be sure there is the thing in itself. But we 
can know only the thing as it appears. Our 
predicament, to use the witty comparison of a 
famous scholar of long ago,! is like that of the 
fox in the fable, tricked with the stork’s long- 
necked bottle. He could only lick the out- 
side of the glass, but could not get at the por- 
ridge within. So our knowledge is only of the 
external appearance. It does not get at the 
thing in itself, that unknown and unintelligible 
something which, according to this philosophy, 
is to be distinguished from the thing as it ap- 
pears.2. It is evident there is logically here 
involved, not only the question whether it is 
possible to know God, but also the further 
question whether it is possible really to know 


1 The elder Scaliger, De Subdtilitate, Ex. cccvii. 21, quoted 
by Hamilton, AZetaphysics, Lect. VIII, 
2 See App., note 9. 


Petey PUALION PHATVREVEALS 71 


anything at all. Let it be granted that, with’ 
our finite faculties, we may not at present 
know everything. It is, however, a somewhat 
different proposition to deny that we can know 
anything. Upon what foundation rests such 
denial of the possibility of any true knowl- 
edges 

The fact that the human mind is constituted 
’ affords no 
ground for denying that its thinking is valid, 


with certain “‘ forms of thought’ 


or for denying that its knowledge is a real 
knowledge. It isa vain presumption for human 
philosophy to limit man’s knowledge, and say, 
‘’ Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther.’’ 
In the old story, King Cnut, on the beach, pre- 
tended thus to set bounds to the sea, but its 
waves were not stayed as the tide camein. So 
the philosopher proclaimed the limits of knowl- 
edge. Nevertheless, within a century, physi- 
cal science had gone on and built up knowledge 
of the natural world into a vast structure of 
concrete and coherent reality that is verified 
by actual experiment. Here is something that 
cannot be dismissed to vanish into air, and, like 
the baseless fabric of a vision, 


‘“‘ Leave not a rack behind.” 


v2 A REVELATION THAT REVEALS 


The verifiable results of scientific research 
stand solidly confronting the assumptions of 
any philosophy which cuts off the objective 
from the subjective. 

Moreover, what are these ‘‘forms of 
thought,’’ and whence came they? In its 
onward progress, science is demonstrating 
that man is sprung from and one with nature, 
not only in physical atoms, but also in mental 
functions. The latest researches find no vio- 
lent opposition or abrupt break between ani- 
mal instinct and man’s intelligence. His 
forms of thought grow out of nature and are 
moulded upon her patterns. Here we may 
look to find a scientific basis for the verdict of 
common sense, that there is a world of reality 
answering to our knowledge of it, and that the 
forms of thought correspond with the forms of 
things as they are. While we may not assert 
that it is so because man thinks so, there is 
some reason for asserting that man thinks so 
because it isso. There is ground for his con- 
fidence that his faculties of knowing are trust- 
worthy. 

In his denial of the possibility of knowing 
the thing in itself, Kant followed Hume, and 


A REVELATION THAT REVEALS ae 


was blinded by certain prejudices of his time. 
Not in maintaining that negative position lay 
his enduring contribution to thought. The 
epoch-making service of Kant consisted in his 
positive vindication of the activity of the mind, 
as characteristically constituted, not merely 
with senses to receive impressions, but, more- 
over, with supersensual powers, by virtue of 
which it is a law unto itself, and duly disposes 
in rational order the material supplied from 
the outer world. 

The mind, indeed, is not passively receptive, 
merely a mirror to reflect what comes through 
the senses, or a sensitive plate to receive and 
register their impressions. It is rather to be 
likened to a hand that reaches forth to seize, 
and that forcefully detains while it dexter- 
ously arranges, moulds, and elaborates the 
material supplied to it. Its intelligence is an 
active spiritual function, spontaneously ener- 
gising, illuminating what were otherwise blank 
or opaque, discerning and discriminating, divid- 
ing and combining, and, out of the confused 
and hap-hazard chaos of mere sense-impres- 
sions, bringing the order of rational knowl- 
edge. 


74 A REVELATION “THAT KEV eats. 


The mind thus, out of itself, furnishes a 
most important element of our knowledge. 
It contributes a certain impregnating, quicken- 
ing, and organising power, wherewith it seizes 
upon the impression and apprehends, that is, 
takes hold of it with touch of life and master- 
ing grasp. Were it not for this active energy 
of the mind, the thing without, howsoever 
real, would be 


‘‘ As is a landscape to a dead man’s eye.” 


But, endowed with this energy, by its means 
we come into truly vital contact with the ob- 
ject. We thus may apprehend, lay hold on, 
where we may not comprehend, that is, en- 
tirely take in. We may rationally apprehend 
that which we only partially understand. Un- 
deniably there are things too high for’ man’s 
knowledge here completely to attain unto. 
We cannot fully understand where we stand 
under, and see only the nether side. But this 
side which is toward us, intelligence may take 
hold of and truly apprehend, although we do 
not know through and through. 

The theory of mental limitations was taken 
up by Sir William Hamilton, who found, in 


Peeke Pea lION SHAD KREKEALS 75 


the consciousness of our impotence to conceive 
of anything beyond the finite and relative,“ an 
astonishing revelation.’’ This was an astonish- 
ing idea of revelation, for Hamilton’s conten- 
tion was that the Absolute, or Unconditioned, 
is not only unknowable but also unthinkable, 
and that there is possible a knowledge only of 
the conditional. His disciple, Dean Mansel, 
went still farther in his famous Bampton Lec- 
tures.1 Upon this philosophy of impotence 
he based a defence of orthodoxy, seeking its 
safety in man’s incapacity. According to 
Mansel, a revelation must be received without 
question, because the nature of God, mentally 
and morally, is for us incomprehensible. His 
attributes are different, not only in degree but 
even in essence, from attributes which we 
know or can know. The revelation is given 
us, not to be understood, but simply in order 
to regulate our conduct. 

This philosophy would shut us up, in our 
finiteness, from any true knowledge of God 
now or hereafter. It was an argument for 
revelation which made more of the veil than 
of the unveiling. To change the figure, 

1 The Limits of Religious Thought. 


76 A REVELATION THAT REVEALS 


it opened between God and man a chasm 
which it then essayed to cross, walking by 
faith, blindfolded, on a rope that held to 
nothing. It was an experiment fraught with 
peril, as is any attempt at a make-believe 
faith, that depends solely upon ignorance, and 
that does not somehow know that which it 
believes. 

It is not strange that men refused a revela- 
tion that claimed to regulate, but not to reveal. 
If no mysteries are revealed, then a natural 
result is Agnosticism, the philosophy of igno- 
rance, know-nothingism. 

From Dean Mansel and Sir William Hamil- 
ton, Mr. Herbert Spencer derives his philoso- 
phy of the Unknowable.t. Emphatic is his 
reiterated affirmation of the existence of a 

Power infinite and absolute. It is, however, 
‘his position ‘‘ that it is alike our highest wis- 
dom and our highest duty to regard that 
through which all things exist as The Unknow- 
able.’’? Of this “‘ eternal fact,’’ beneath every . 
phenomenon, we can know, he claims, only the 
appearances and not the reality. But surely, 
if we know the appearances, those appearances 

1 First Principles, p. 39, et seq. * [bid., p. 113. 


WMeMemeLAliON THAR REVEALS ra 


are manifestations of something. The Power 
is not utterly unknowable which is thus mani- 
fested in appearances. Indeed, Mr. Spencer 
says it is “‘ everywhere manifested.’’ So far, 
then, as it is manifested, it is not unknowable. 
That which this great Agnostic declares re- 
garding its omnipotence and omnipresence 
is something to know. Furthermore, we are 
‘ obliged to regard that power as omniscient.”’ 
It is infinite. - It is eternal. It is the great 
Cause, ‘‘an infinite and eternal energy from 
which all things proceed.’’! It “‘is the same 
power which in ourselves wells up under the 
form of consciousness.’’? Regarding his Un- 
knowable, Mr. Spencer has asserted that he 
knows the above particulars. The mental pro- 
cesses, which give us this much knowledge, 
must be trusted when they lead us farther on. | 
Says Mr. Spencer himself : “‘ We are bound in 
consistency to receive the widest knowledge 
which our faculties can reach.’’? Whether we 
look without at the material world, or look 
within ourselves, inasmuch as the supreme 
Power ** works in us certain effects,’’4in either 


1 Ecclesiastical Institutions, p. 843. PLUG ea OOO. 
° First Principles, p. 19. SV EATES UNA typ 


78 A REVELATION THAT REVEALS 


case, from observation of the effects we may 
learn something about the cause. 

All our knowledge, however, argues Mr. 
Spencer, is relative, and this Power we can 
know only as related. It is true all our knowl- 
edge is a perception of relations ; and therefore 
we may see how little weight this objection 
has.!. Certainly we know the supreme Power 
not out of relations but in relations, as Al- 
mighty Maker of heaven and earth. It is be- 
cause, and so far as, related to the world and 
related to us, in ourselves, as Mr. Spencer con- 
cedes, welling up under the form of conscious- 
ness, that it may be known by us. Our knowl- 
edge is not absolute and perfect. To say, 
however, that our knowledge is partial and in- 
adequate does not mean that it is false, and 
without any correspondence with reality, as 
Agnosticism would imply. We may not com- 
prehend the infinite, because we are finite. 
But we none the less may apprehend that 
which we cannot fully comprehend. We can- 
not conceive the infinite, in this sense, namely, 
that we cannot in imagination make a mental 
picture of it. The infinite we cannot dis- 


1 See App., note To. 


A REVELATION THAT REVEALS 79 


tinctly image, nor completely know, because 
we are not gods. But even so, we may know. 
The infinitude, the boundlessness, of God is 
not His essence. It pertains only to the ex- 
tent and degree of His attributes. Mr. Spen- 
cer does not lose his knowledge of power in 
describing it as infinite. We do not lose our 
knowledge of love by thinking of love without 
a limit. God’s essential nature we might ap- 
prehend, even although unable to comprehend, 
or conceive, the measure and degree. 

It is one thing to assume that we can find 
out all about God. It is another thing to feel 
after and find Him who is not far from every 
one of us. Theologians, it is true, have some- 
times ignored the partiality and limitations of 
their knowledge. Indeed, to those presump- 
tuous pretensions to understand all mysteries 
and all knowledge may be partly ascribed the 
reaction into this agnostic know-nothingism. 
A further reason is to be sought in higher con- 
ceptions of God. There may be in some 
Agnostic a more genuine devoutness than in 
the man who glibly claims to know it all. The 
name, God, in its content carries such hereto- 
fore unmined, undiscovered wealth, it is now 


80 A REVELATION THAT REVEALS 


meaning so much to thoughtful men, that 
some have come honestly to regard Him as, in 
majesty of power and universality, entirely out 
of reach of their intelligence. It is good that 
reverence in us dwell, but, with it, also 


«“ Let knowledge grow from more to more.” 


II. To say that we cannot know everything 
about God does not mean that we may not 
know anything about Him. How little we 
know of Shakespeare ! Behind that crowded 
stage, that peopled world he has created for 
us, is the master-magician himself, like his 
Prospero, calm and self-contained, his own 
personality, behind that impenetrable reti- 
cence, a problem. The more we read, the 
more baffling the questions. 


‘* We ask and ask—Thou smilest and art still, 
Out-topping knowledge.” 


How little we know of the man himself! On 
the other hand, how much we know, as that 
myriad-minded man has expressed himself in 
his works ! Far more truly may we say: how 
little we know of God, and yet how much we 
know, as He has manifested Himself to us. 


APREVELATION THAT REVEALS SI 


To say that we cannot know anything unless 
we know all, would involve a distrust of human 
knowledge generally, and the paralysis of 
science. It would mean that we cannot really 
know anything at all. The validity of our 
knowledge we must distinguish from its com- 
pleteness. Knowledge is not invalid because 
incomplete. We may not know, in utter com- 
pleteness, the full truth about anything. Ten- 
nyson has well put this in the familiar frag- 
ment..— 

‘“ Flower in the crannied wall, 
I pluck you out of the crannies, 
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
Little flower—but if I could understand 


What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
I should know what God and man is.” 


For fully to know anything takes us at last 
to God. Weare bound to know as much as 
we can. And we may know more of God than 
of anything, because there is more to know. 
We never get tothe end. There will ever be 
before us more to know, because God is more 
than man. But we may be continually pro- 
eressing in the knowledge. Indeed, all genuine 


advance in knowledge might be described as 
6 


82 A REVELATION THAT REVEALS 


progress in a journey that finds its ultimate 
destination in Him. For, of all our knowing, 
God is the beginning and the end. 

Thus the Unknowable is found to be the 
only partly known. Our knowledge is by no 
means completely exhaustive. It may not go 
very far along the limitless way of its great 
argument. But, so far as it goes, it is substan- 
tially true. God is in this regard like the 
ocean. You say you have seen the ocean. It 
may be you merely stand on the shore. At 
most you traverse only a very small portion of 
its vast expanse. You do not know it in its 
extent. You do not know it in its depth. 
But you launch out upon it, you spread sail 
and voyage through its waters ; and you say, 
this is the ocean, we are on the great deep. 
So, encompassed and upheld by Him in whom 
we live, we may say, we are in Him that is 
true, this is the true God. 

If the voyager on this great deep encounter 
strange seas enveloped in thick mist, where the 
intellect has to go “‘ sounding on a dim and 
perilous way,’’ yet again he comes out into 
clear waters. Let him keep on, and he may 
sail far, to new horizons. For man’s advancing 


Bene VeeALION “lial REV BALS 83 


knowledge, there is an ever receding horizon. 
Weare finite; that is, limited. But in the very 
knowing that we are finite is involved a knowl- 
edge of something beyond the finite. We 
should not know we had come to the limit, if 
we did not look beyond the limit. To be con- 
scious of a limit is already in thought to tran- 
scend it. Thus we are not so shut up in our. 
finitude as to catch no glimpse of that which 
is illimitable. It is the prerogative of man 
thus to look before, to pursue the adventurous 
quest of the infinite, and in effort, expectation, 
and desire, 


“ To follow knowledge like a sinking star 
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.” 


Here we know in part. In comparison with 
God’s immeasurable greatness, our knowledge 
seems but an “inch of inkling.’’ In Him is 
iy ctety wee LineLeminust boamiysterya ee enere 
must be in His being unfathomed depths and 
heights undreamed of. Were He not thus be- 
yond our comprehension and imagination, He 
were not God. Agnosticism is, in one aspect 
of it, a confession, in the presence of the mys- 
tery, of the powerlessness of the human mind’s 


84 A REVELATION THAT KEVEALS 


unaided faculties to penetrate its depth and 
traverse infinitude. The mystery, however, is 
not the mystery of nothingness, or of nothing 
thinkable, a dead blank, an empty void of ab- 
straction and negation. It were more reason- 
able to conceive thereof that it is reason’s true 
goal, even if it be forever beyond perfect at- 
tainment, to conceive that therein is all-com-- 
prehensive thought to which nothing here 
is insignificant, and fulness of vital knowl- 
edge, that there is the primal source of illu- 
mination whence shoot forth rays of enlighten- 
ment. 

It is not, then, the mystery of darkness. It 
is the mystery of light. It is dazzling, but it is 
illuminating. For, as we have in a former lec- 
ture observed, it is an essential characteristic 
of spirit to express itself.’ It belongs to the 
nature of God, as spiritual being, to be self- 
revealing. If this be true as an explanation of 
material nature, it is more evidently true asa 
reason for the creation of man. The creation 
of man is in order that to the finite spirit infi- 
nite spirit may communicate itself. 

It is, after all, not so much that men know 


+See Lecture 1p. 15. 


AOKEVELALION THAT (REVEALS 85 


God. It is rather that God knows men. That 
is to say, the first movement is from Him. 
God is mysterious because He is infinite: but, 
because He is spirit, He is. self-revealing. 
Dwelling in light unapproachable, His light 
yet visits men ; as from the distant and yet 
dazzling sun in the sky, which no man may ap- 
proach or gaze upon, issues the light in which 
we see. An apostle makes the same compari- 
son to the noblest of God’s gifts in the mate- 
rial world, and lifts our thought from the 
natural light to that which is spiritual. ‘‘ See- 
ing it is God, that said, Light shall shine out 
of darkness, who shined in our hearts.’”! 
dinereis sbutvone. Godt) Ithis the sametGod 
whose fiat was, ‘Let there be light,’’ who gives 
spiritual enlightenment to men. Indeed, God 
is light, by the principle of His nature, shin- 
ing forth,.self-manifesting and revealing. In 
His light do we see light. 

We have considered, not exhaustively, but 
at least so far as our space would allow, the ob- 
jections to a revelation which allege the limita- 
tions of the mind. The revelation, it is true, 
must be through the medium of the human 

2 OL SIV eOel [ieee | 


86 A:REVELATION THAT REVEALS 


mind. For not otherwise would it be intelli- 
gible. The infinite is revealed only as it can 
be revealed in the finite. God is made known 
only as He can be made known in man. The 
light shining in the heart must be perceived and 
intelligently interpreted, as the lights in the 
sky are observed and noted by the astronomer ; 
and by the mind thus enlightened light is 
transmitted to others. The medium is lim- 
ited. God’s revelation of Himself in and 
through man is limited by what He has made 
man to be. These intellectuai limitations we 
have considered, and have found that they are 
not incompatible with a knowledge of God, 
which, although partial, is true. 


III. Having touched upon these intellectual 
difficulties, it remains to consider, further, that 
the revelation of God is more than intellectual. 
The theory of limitations, whether as applied 
to our faculties of knowing or to the instru- 
ments of revealing, has been pushed too far in 
the case of this revelation. Men have asserted 
the limits of thought, as if it were a question of 
thought alone ; asif the precious gold of truth 
were to be sought solely in the Arctic region 


AeREVECATION THAT ‘REVEALS 87 


of a frigid intellectuality, where must be con- 
traction, thin air to breathe, and fatal hazard 
in the quest; as if it never invited men’s 
search in more genial climes. 

This is not, however, a revelation for ab- 
stract thought alone. The intellect is not the 
only organ of knowing. A man is something 
more than a mere reasoning machine, and his 
understanding is not all of him. His intel- 
lect, moreover, is by no means the complete 
measure of the world of reality. There are 
more things in heaven and earth than are 
dreamt of in its philosophy. There are things 
to be otherwise than intellectually revealed. 
There are things which are hid from the wise 
and prudent and revealed unto babes, hid as 
matters for wisdom and understanding and re- 
vealed as matters for sympathy and love. As 
one of our own poets has said : 

‘* Man’s love ascends 


To finer and diviner ends 
Than man’s mere thought e’er comprehends.”! 


Men are taught through sympathy. They are 
taught through experience and its processes of 
life-learning. 

‘Lanier, Zhe Symphony. 


88 A REVELATION THAT REVEALS 


The historic revelation, as we shall later 
see, is not, primarily or essentially, a com- 
munication of propositions to the intellect, 
but an unfolding and unveiling of moral and 
spiritual truth to man’s whole spiritual nature. 
It brings to men knowledge of God much after 
the manner of our coming to know the persons 
about us, as they manifest themselves to us in 
character and life, in what they say and do and 
are. It is enough, at this point, to observe that 
we may conceive of a disclosure of moral 
character, a disclosure of qualities which we 
may describe as personal, constituting a reve- 
lation which thus would not need to be ac- 
commodated to our apprehension. Such 
things as goodness, patience, love, sacrifice, 
we know when we seethem. They are intelli- 
gible to all. Where they are not understood, 
it is not because of any intellectual incapacity. 
After the unveiling of spiritual truth, of good- 
ness and mercy, of love and sacrifice, if men 
do not receive such a revelation, it is chiefly 
for reasons which are not intellectual but moral. 
The difficulty does not lie in their mental fac- 
ulties. Rather “‘a veil lieth upon their heart.” 
It is their affections and sympathies, their hab- 


A REVELATION THAT RKEVEALS 89 


itual motives and dispositions, which make 
them slow of heart to believe. 

Likewise, in regard to the instruments, the 
human persons through whom the revelation 
came, there are the limitations, it is true, of 
their humanity. The treasure is in earthen 
vessels. There are the limitations, further- 
more, of the individual personality and capac- 
ity of receiving and transmitting. As King 
Arthur told his knights, 


‘ For every fiery prophet in old times, 
And all the sacred madness of the bard, 
When God made music through them, could but speak 
His music by the frame-work and the chord.” ? 


The music of the harp was not the same as 
that of the viol, and one harp might differ 
from another. But it was none the less true 
music, fitted to convey its message. The 
knowledge of God through human persons, 
although partial, is not the less true knowledge. 
The human medium is restricted in its capac- 
ity. A glass cannot mirror the world, or more 
than asmall part of it. This part, however, 
which is mirrored, the glass does not, because 
1 The Holy Grail. 


go A REVELATION THAT REVEALS 


of its diminutive size, necessarily discolour, or 
distort, or fail to present in a true reflection. 
Light is the same on earth as in the sun. So, 
likewise, goodness is goodness in man and in 
God, in essence the same and differing only in 
degree. Genuine love in man is the same as 
love in God. Sacrifice, whether in God or 
man, is to be recognised as sacrifice. 

It is a matter of spiritual life. God speaks 
in the still small voice that utters moral and 
spiritual truths which are eternally true. To 
that still small voice, some have an ear more 
attent than others. They learn to hear and 
heed whispers that to others are inaudible. 
The man who is thus sensitive and responsive 
to moral and spiritual truth, to him God tells 
His secrets. He becomes one of God's chosen 
few ‘‘ whom He whispers in the ear.’’ “They 
receive the revelation that reveals. Such an 
one may not be able to tell the story. He may 
have seen things which it is not lawful to utter 
and which mortal tongue cannot speak. The 
vision may sometimes elude attempts at defi- 
nition and description. None the less it is a 
heavenly vision and it reveals, albeit defying 
question and vain babbling. 


Meee eA LAAT. KEY BEALS QI 


“« Ask me not, for I may not speak of it : 
I saw it:’ and the tears were in his eyes.” 


Thus we have seers, men of spiritual dis- 
cernment, of deep insight and of far vision ; 
and thus arise prophets to tell forth in due 
time a message, reflecting outwardly what has 
flashed upon that inward eye. They live in 
an atmosphere of moral and spiritual truth 
above their fellow-men, in “‘a purer ether, a 
diviner air.”’ The subject of inspiration will 
occupy our attention in another lecture. Our 
immediate subject touches, on its human side, 
the problem of man’s knowing God. Let us 
here note that this knowledge is not so much 
a matter of intellectual acuteness as of life in 
the spirit, for always life is the light of men. 
The knowledge comes in these men’s experi- 
ence of spiritual life, as God’s life touches their 
life like a warming, quickening, glorifying sun- 
shine. In mountain lands one may see some 
peak catching the glow of the sunrise while 
lower levels still lie in shadow. So, on spirit- 
ual heights, men receive light which is not yet 
visible to others. Others see them : they see 
the sun. 

On the other hand, there is a mist of doubt 


Q2 A REVELATION THAT REVEALS 


that rises in the lowlands of life. It is not 
only a mist that obscures one’s mental out- 
look ; but also, under certain conditions it 
may come to be, howsoever intangible and im- 
palpable, a moral malaria, infecting men’s 
spiritual nature, lowering their vitality and 
force, robbing them of joyous interest in life, 
and weakening the stuff and fibre of their cour- 
age, because impairing their high faith in right 
and truth. 

Mysteries for the intellect there must be, as 
we have seen, things hard to understand, per- 
plexing problems to wrestle with. It were idle 
to deny them. Yet these difficulties and per- 
plexities need not daunt aman. The valiant 
soul will face the spectres of the mind, and 
still persevere in the quest of God’s truth. 
‘“Canst thou by searching find out God? 
Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfec- 
tion? It is high as heaven ; what canst thou 
do? Deeper than Sheol; what canst thou 
know? The measure thereof is longer than 
the earth and broader than the sea.’’ That 
whole passage in the Book of Job is eloquent 
and lofty poetry. But, whatever their place in 
the argument of the book, or whatever their 


A REVELATION THAT REVEALS 93 


true meaning, the words may be borrowed, in 
mock humility and show of reverence, to 
cloak a lazy, listless distrust of our faculties 
and a pessimistic disloyalty to truth. True 
religion must mean something better than 
ignoble repose in the refuge of a sense of 
utterly unintelligible mystery. Always God 
shows 


“, . sufficient of His light 
For us 1’ the dark to rise by.” 


So far as strenuous life might find the sense of 
mystery an incubus, revelation lightens the 
burden, and one need never be oppressed and 
made impotent by its weight. Where more 
than this is not vouchsafed, the withholding is 
still in the interest of true life. Even there, 
the mystery that remains need not appall. 
Rather does it fascinate and beckon one on. 
In those very perplexities and difficulties, there 
lies moral possibility, there is wholesome disci- 
pline, there is education in reverence and loyal 
faith, in earnestness and manful endeavour to 
attain. Rightly faced, they become means of 
growth and of further entrance into man’s 
proper inheritance. 


94 A REVELATION THAT REVEALS 


““ No, Man’s the prerogative—knowledge once gained— 
To ignore,—find new knowledge to press for, to 
swerve 
In pursuit of, no, not for a moment ; attained— 
Why, onward through ignorance! Dare and de- 
serve ! 
As still to its asymptote speedeth the curve, 


So approximates Man—Thee, who, reachable not, 
Hast formed him to yearningly follow Thy whole 
Sole and single omniscience !” ? 


It were a grave error, in one’s view and esti- 
mate of things, to be deceived by what is after 
all only thin vapour and insubstantial mist. 
It is possible for a mist to close in, shutting 
off the view, and all the while there stand 
the perpetual hills. Agnosticism may say its 
word, but none the less true are the eternal 
verities and the righteousness that standeth 
like the strong mountains. The mist shall 
roll away and leave the air clear, that we may 
lift our eyes to the hills, and in favoured hours 
even see the land that is very far off. Many, 
I venture to think, shall find that their ag 
nosticism has been such a passing mist, that 
there is the sun, that it shines, that in its light 


‘Fust and [fis Friends, See App., note It. 


A REVELATION THAT REVEALS 95 


we may see. Mysteries there are, and mental 
perplexities there are likely to be. Neverthe- 
less one may 


«Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt,” 


for, if there be the shadow, there is the sun- 
shine, and it is a light that reveals. 


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TU 


A Revelation of Personality 


‘There is in personality the highest that is within the 
knowledge of man. It is the steepest, loftiest summit toward 


which we move in our attainment.”—-MuL¥orD, Zhe Republic 
of God, p. 22. 


‘“God’s thought or Word is never like man’s, an abstract 
or impersonal thing. zs thought or Word, unlike ours, 
never ceases to be His personal thinking and speaking, i.e. 
Himself. It never becomes detached from Himself, but He 
is always in it and it is always He.”—W. P. Du Boss, The 
Sotertology of the New Testament, p. 135. 


‘’ Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can 
mect, 


—TENNYSON, The Higher Pantheism. 


a ny ———— 


PeehEVELATION OF 
eels GONG LetsN2 


AS was observed in the second of these lec- 
tures, the manifestation of God is at length 
specialised, in the history of a particular people. 
This special revelation is essentially spiritual. 
God is revealed as spirit. Shall we expect to 
find Him revealed only as spirit in the world, 
Or as spirit both in and above the world? 
There claim attention to-day two great forms 
of the idea of God: Pantheism, which conceives 
of the Deity as identical with the total of exist- 
ing things and wholly immanent in the world, 
and Theism, which distinguishes Him from the 
world as not only within it but also above it. 

The Deism of a former century placed God 
altogether without and apart from the world. 
As aman constructs a clock and winds it up, 
and then leaves it to run until he finds it nec- 
essary to open the case in order to wind it 
again or to repair its works ; somewhat so the 


100 A REVELATION OF PERSONALITY 


world was originally God’s handiwork, with 
which, however, He had subsequently little to 
do, except in the way of miraculous interven- 
tion. For the most part He was, indeed, to 
use Carlyle’s words, ‘‘ an absentee God, sitting 
idle, ever since the first Sabbath, at the out- 
side of his universe and seeing it go.’’1_ This 
conception of God, while it has left its traces 
upon popular belief and speech, has become in 
our age impossible. Either a God so far out- 
side is banished altogether, or else He is seen 
to be something more than that to the world, 
and always here because everywhere. The 
divine omnipresence and the observed unity 
of nature have made Deism untenable for 
those who think. 


I. There is no little attraction in the Pan- 
theism which places God not outside of, but 
within, the world. It were vain to deny the 
fascination of a pantheistic conception of the 
world, presenting the wonder and bloom of 
a universe wholly alive with God. Yet Pan- 
theism gets all its warmth and colour from an 
element whereof it is by no means sole propri- 


’ Sartor Resartus, Book II. chap. viii. 


A REVELATION OF PERSONALITY jo] 


etor. That vision of God in the world does 
not belong to the pantheist alone. The theist 
may have it no less truly. For him, also, the 
Deity is omnipresent, the universal power, per- 
petually creative in nature’s processes, pervad- 
ing all her shifting forms, all her quivering 
energies and the pulsating rhythm of her laws, 
the animating soul of the world, the spirit of 
its beauty and its life. The question is whether 
this universe alive with God exhausts His life 
and power. Truly to see God in the world, it 
is necessary to view the world in God and to 
regard Him as being more than the world. 
When you see the artist in a characteristic 
work of his, you know at the same time that he 
himself is more than any or all of his works, 
and that into them he puts, at best, only part 
of himself. 

Pantheism, in the endeavour after all-com- 
prehending unity, would make God and the 
world but opposite aspects of one sole reality. 
According as one aspect or the other is empha- 
sised, there are differing forms of Pantheism. 
One form is more concrete. It starts with the 
unity of the world and deifies nature. <A 
more abstract and speculative view, beginning 


102. 4 REVELATION (OF PERSONAL Ee. 


with God as the only substance, regards the 
world as no reality, but a superficial show of 
shifting scenes and appearances that vanish, 
and all things material and spiritual as fleeting 
manifestations respectively of Infinite exten- 
sion and Infinite thought, which are substan- 
tially one. Looked at under the form of 
eternity, the world is discovered to be an in- 
substantial illusion, behind which there is one, 
and only one, being that is real. The former 
view loses God in finite things, the One in the 
many. The latter loses the many in the One, 
merging all finite distinctions in His infinitude. 

Here again, while the theist as well as the 
pantheist sees manifestations of God in finite 
things, so for him, also, is that regard sub specte 
aternitatis, and he, too, may see things in 
God. He views things in God, however, be- 
cause God’s greatness over-passes the sum of 
all things. The divine infinitude is far from 
being used up in these finite things, inasmuch 
as it is the inexhaustible source whence they 
proceed. The theist views things in God, 
moreover, not as disappearing in an abyss, 
sinking into an unfathomable gulf where every- 
thing is lost and nothing found. For him, 


4, REVELATION OF PERSONALITY 103 


Deity is manifested, not as a vague vortex of 
absorption wherein all distinctions are merged, 
but as the living source of manifold evolution, 
the one Spirit of life, manifesting Himself in a 
differentiating process of upward development, 
until at last the process culminates in man. . 


II. The question before us is: whether this 
Spirit be revealed as only the life of the universe 
or as, moreover, its lord as well as giver of life; 
whether the divine Soul be revealed, on the 
one hand, as only within or beneath the world, 
or, on the other hand, as not in entire fulness 
manifested by finite things, as being in essen- 
tial nature over and above the world, distinct 
although not separate therefrom. 

To stop where the pantheist does, to recog- 
nise God as immanent within the world and 
nothing more, to refuse a revelation of any 
transcendence above the world, is not this to 
shut one’s eyes to at least half the truth one 
might know? In the first place, one must 
walk blindfold through a world of right and 
wrong. If God be identical with all that is, 
and if all that is be equally a manifestation of 
the divine, then there is left no standard of 


To, 4 REVELATION OF PERSONALITY 


right, right and wrong have lost their mean- 
ing, and whatever is is right. With all other 
distinctions, moral distinctions also have disap- 
peared. There is no evil. What seemed such 
is a fiction, having no more substance than a 
shadow. Indeed, evil is only imperfect good, 
or good in the making. There is no antago- 
nism nor any real difference. Good and evil 
have each its place in the rhythm of the divine 
harmony, like daylight and dark. A\ll alike is 
good. Now against all this there is protest 
within us. We see things that are not right, 
and the insistence of a moral ideal forces our 
thought on and up. From things as they are, 
we look for a God of things as they ought to 
be, a God who forever is all which that inerad- 
icable ideal of righteousness demands. _ 
Moreover, in this view of existence, not only 
does right vanish, but also moral responsibility 
isadream. We are but puppets playing our 
parts as manipulated by the world-magician. 
Indeed, these selves of ours disappear, lost in 
the all, like waves rising and subsiding in the 
ocean. Merged in the universal, our own in- 
dividual being is only an appearance, an illu- 
sion, a bubble blown to be dissolved in the 


oy BATION OF IPURSONAITTY 105 


encasing air, and we literally ‘‘ are such stuff 
as dreams are made on.”’ 

Assuredly, however, we know that we are 
something more than bubbles, by reason of 
the fact of self. This that we call self we 
have sight of in the interior illumination of 
consciousness. That fountain light presents 
to us this primary fact. The first clear expe- 
rience of consciousness involves the implicit 
recognition of one’s own self. If we scrutinise 
this self-consciousness, we find it to be exqui- 
sitely delicate and subtle, yet very persistent. 
We are apprised of a self that is more than an 
accident or an incident, for it enters into, and 
indeed underlies, the whole story of life, which, 
without it, would have no coherence. Suppose 
it not to be, and the bottom drops out of 
everything that is thought and felt and done. 
It is not a mere bundle of experiences. I am 
conscious of a self that, as we say, ‘‘ goes 
through ”’ all my varying experiences, always 
the same thread that holds them on a single 
string and makes them mine. I can distin- 
guish myself amidst my experiences as well as 
from my things. 

Inquiring now, not how this self came to be, 


106 A REVELATION OF PERSONALITY 


but simply what it is, as we are conscious of it, 
we find it to be presented in consciousness asa 
reality, as persistently identical through all the 
years and all the changes they bring, and as 
a unit simple and indivisible. It can neither 
be dissolved away nor divided up. More cer- 
tainly than he knows anything else one knows 
his own self, 


‘And knows himself no vision to himself,” 


knows, that is, that this self is not a mere ap- 
pearance, but is the most real thing in his life. 
Indeed, it is the touchstone of reality. Any- 
thing else much touch it in some relation, in 
order to be recognised as real. Only in rela- 
tion to this self have things reality for a man. 
This self he can distinguish not only from ex- 
ternal objects, but also from its experiences, 
and, moreover, from its own states, making 
self an object of thought to himself. Thus we 
have what Dante describes as ‘‘ one single soul 
which lives and feels and on itself revolves,”’ 


(Oo «Un valma-sala 
Che vive e sente e sé in sé rigira.”! 


1 Purgatorio xxv. 75. 


A REVELATION OF PERSONALITY 107 


I know that it is I that think and feel, and in 
thinking and feeling I know that I am. 

With this self-consciousness goes also self- 
determination. The self is not only reflective, 
but it is also dynamic with energy of volition. 
It is no passive thing, the plaything of circum- 
stance. It is a centre of power and activity, 
an agent acting upon things and reacting upon 
circumstances, capable of persistency along a 
purposed line of effort. This self-conscious 
and self-determining agent isa person. Each 
person, in consciousness of himself and of his 
will, has a centre of his own and is distinct 
from all other persons.! 

No less evident is the superiority of a per- 
son to all that is impersonal. Nature holds on 
to man by his physical constitution, but, in 
this realisation of himself, man rises above 
nature. That which has characteristically 
distinguished the history of man in the world, 
that by which he has lifted himself above the 
world, is that which constitutes personality. I 
say, that which constitutes personality. For 
it is important to note that the fact of person- 
ality, or self-hood, and the living experience 


"See App., note 12, 


108 A REVELATION OF PERSONALITY 


of it, far antedated any philosophic conception 
or formal definition of it. Man was a personal 
being long before he knew or appreciated the 
meaning of personality. It is something of 
which the realisation has been attained only 
by a slow process. 

Indeed, personality is yet far from being ex- 
haustively known. Intimate as is one’s knowl- 
edge of self, nevertheless, with functions not 
fully comprehended, with depths unsounded, 
with provinces of the unconscious beyond one’s 
oversight or control, it remains fraught with 
mystery. One cannot get outside himself and 
have a complete view of what it is to be a self. 
Thus self-hood cannot be perfectly defined. 
Nor can it be taken to pieces and analysed. It 
is an ultimate fact of existence. It continues 
persistent in the face of all denial and refuses 
to be explained away. 

Now any form of Pantheism, identifying 
God with all that is, must sacrifice this con- 
sciously distinct self-hood of human beings, 
merging it in the all, like the rainbow in the 
cloud, and making persons to be mere phases 
or passing manifestations of the universal 
spirit. And to the degree in which this is done, 


A REVELATION OF PERSONALITY 109 


to that degree does our very being protest 
against such an absorption into an all-in-all, 
wherein we are lost never again to find our- 
selves. 

For, furthermore, self-hood, or personality, 
is not only an ultimate fact of existence, but 
also we know no fact greater or more signi- 
ficant. To quote from the classic passage 
in Pascal, ‘“ Man is but a reed, the weakest 
thing in nature, but it is a reed that thinks. 
There is no need that the whole universe 
arm itself to crush him. A vapour, a drop of 
water, is enough to kill him. But though the 
universe should crush him, man is more noble 
than that which slays him, for he knows that 
he dies, while the universe knows nothing of 
the advantage it has over him.’’! 


III. Thus the highest thing we know in the 
world, personal life is not without anticipation, 
presage, and prophecy, pointing on and up. 
It has windows open toward heaven, looking 
forth on a luminous view stretching endlessly 
away. Of unique importance in our present 
consideration is the fact of personality, as the 


? Pensées, Ed. Firmin Didot, 1844. I, Art. i. vi. 


110 A REVELATION OF PERSONALITY 
lofty culmination of the age-long creative 
process, 


“From life’s minute beginnings, up at last 
To man—the consummation of this scheme 
Of being, the completion of this sphere 
Of life: whose attributes had here and there 
Been scattered o’er the visible world before, 
Asking to be combined, dim fragments meant 
To be united in some wondrous whole,” } 


, 


That ‘‘ wondrous whole’’ is a self-conscious, 
self-determining person. If, as we have rea- 
son to believe, the entire upward-tending order 
of evolution is a gradual disclosure ; if the suc- 
cessive stages of the ever-ascending scale of 
being constitute a progressive manifestation ; 
if in that manifestation the highest stage, and 
the one richest in significance, is human life ; 
if human life has its loftiest expression in per- 
sonality : then it is reasonable to conclude 
that it is through personality that we are to 
learn the last and greatest lessons about the 
supreme Being manifested in this unfolding 
revelation. It is as men consider personality, 
and search into its depths, that they find pro- 
foundest teaching about God. The voice of 


1 Paracelsus. 


Mpirey BUALTION OF PERSONALITY 7 1i 


revelation is to be sought in withdrawal from 
outward things, and in entrance within, 


«Into the temple-cave of thine own self.” ? 


There the word is nigh thee, even in thine 
Hedtta el herefore*shouldswe noteexpect’ the 
revelation, thus given to men through their 
personality, at some stage to become personal 
in its essence and contents, disclosing charac- 
teristics in God which in man we call personal ? 
Is it not reasonable to look for a revelation of 
what, for want of a better word, we call person- 
ality ? 

The charge of anthropomorphism, at this 
point, I am not careful to repel. The error of 
anthropomorphism does not lie in supposing 
something wherein the divine and the human 
natures are alike, but in thinking God to be 
altogether such an one as man. To reason as 
we are now doing does not mean that we make , 
God in our image, but rather that God made_ 
man in His own image. Only let us look high 
enough for the likeness. If we may be said in 
any wise to be after the likeness of the Most 


1 The Ancient Sage. 


112 A REVELATION OF PERSONALITY 


High, surely it is in the highest form of our 
life that we are most like God and designed 
most truly after the divine image. It has 
been reasonable for mento look within them- 
selves, and, where they see themselves at their 
highest and best, there to see a reflection of 
something-in God which, greater although it 
be, they may yet see mirrored in their person- 
ality, thus beholding as in a glass, because re- 
flecting as a mirror, the personality of God. 
Higher than their highest He must be, but in 
no wise lower. It were irrational to conceive 
of the Most High as inferior to His creature in 
the mode of His existence, through lack of that 
which makes the dignity and glory of human 
life. 

Men are not left without witness here. They 
do not look out upon the world as aliens. 
They have been able to recognise a certain kin- 
ship in the Power manifested in the universe, 
to feel at home with it, and to find therein 
some likeness to themselves which they might 
understand and interpret. The force to be 
observed everywhere in nature is no stranger 
to men. “They interpret its enerey, they cet 
their primary, and their only sure, notion of it, 


4 REVELATION OF PERSONALITY (113 


as we have seen in the first Lecture,! from the 
force they know within themselves, the energy, 
that is, of their own volition. Will is the ex- 
planation of the force to be observed through- 
out the universe. Thus, to the Being of inf- 
nite and eternal energy thereby manifested, is 
ascribed living will. 

Likewise, from their own consciousness of 
purpose directing their efforts, men have inter- 
preted the apparent design in the world as 
really designed. The science of to-day has 
discarded only a false and petty teleology. 
She is obliged still to employ the terms and 
phrases of design, because continually she 
finds design and reads thoughts in things. 
Indeed, science has opened up vistas that 
disclose a larger teleology pointing to vaster 
issues. 

It is a world of thoughts as well as things. 
A rational conception of the source of the uni- 
verse ought to be adequate to account for all 
the facts of the universe, and the purpose ever 
and again to be observed is a fact to be ac- 
counted for. Whose is the purpose? The 
human mind also is a fact in the universe, not 


ECC LO: 


114. 4 REVELATION OF PERSONALITY 


to be left out of the account. Whence came 
that ? Reason must interpret the world, not 
by a part, and that a lower part, as does mate- 
rialism, but by all the facts there are, and chiefly 
by the highest there is. One sees in all the 
universe nothing higher than man, and knows 
in man nothing higher than spirit. Through 
the spirit in himself and others one learns of 
the spirit that is omnipresent. Man must 
reason from that which is observed and known. 
It would seem inevitable to reason from 
thought in the world to thought in the source 
of the world. 

In this way we reach omnipresent intelli- 
gence and will. If those words be not empty 
and meaningless abstractions, the intelligence 
and will cannot be devoid of that which, in our- 
selves, we know as consciousness and deter- 
mination of self. 

It is true Schopenhauer supposed the source 
of all to be blind impersonal Will. The weak- 
ness of this explanation was seen by his philo- 
sophical successor, Von Hartmann, who with 
Will united the Idea, in his absolute world- 
principle, the Unconscious. I will not here 
enter into his somewhat fantastic metaphysics. 


er neeeLATION OF PERSONALITY “1 15 


It is enough to say that the general reason- 
ableness of the systems of both Schopenhauer 
and Hartmann may be inferred from the pes- 
simism wherein their philosophy finds most 
lame and impotent conclusion. Nor is Hart- 
mann consistent. His world-principle is im- 
personal and unconscious. It differs widely 
from Schopenhauer’s blind unintelligent Will, 
in that it is wise with intuitive clairvoyance 
and never errs. Hartmann noted much that is 
of interest in the domain of the unconscious. 
But his exaltation of the unconscious above 
consciousness ends in absurdity. Indeed, in 
the sixth edition of ‘‘ The Philosophy of the 
Unconscious,”’ he felt obliged to designate his 
world-power of infallible intelligence as at once 
unconscious and super-conscious. 

Vain was the endeavour to elucidate the mys- 
tery of the world by a principle which lacked 
the light of consciousness. It was making the 
Deity a giant of vast proportions, working 
wonders in a sleep of insensibility. Hartmann 
finds everywhere design, and is brilliant in his 
defence of teleology, but he fails where he 
makes teleology to be unconscious. No power 
can purpose it knows not what. How can 


116 A REVELATION OF PERSONALITY 


there be future purpose without present idea 
and without a mind to which the future is thus 
present in idea ? 

Hartmann is pronounced in recognition of 
the spiritual. But the spiritual demands the 
significance of personality. How can there be 
thought without a thinker? How could the 
universal thought and will, if unconscious and 
impersonal, ever have become focussed in hu- 
man persons? The source of power and 
knowledge cannot be powerless to know and 
determine itself. Spirit, so far as we have any 
direct knowledge of it, is personal. So far as 
we know, it cannot be impersonal. A property 
of spirit is self-activity, and self-activity im- 
plies a self that acts. To think implies a 
thinker who in himself is, and who is thus es- 
sentially a person. Indeed, in order to mean 
anything, the term, spiritual, must include the 
personal. Spirit involves personality, not as 
a mere attribute, but as essentially necessary, 
to make it other than a vague, blank, and 
meaningless void.! 


IV. In accordance with reason, then, comes 


+See App., note 13. 


> 


A REVELATION OF PERSONALITY 117 


a revelation of divine self-hood, a revelation of 
God as a distinct, self-conscious and self-deter- 
mining centre of existence. ‘‘I am that I 
am.’ Those great words, and all the subse- 
quent revelations that ensued, imply so much 
as that. This revelation of self-hood certain 
men will not accept. There are those who 
refuse to call God a personal being, even while 
ascribing to Him characteristics of personality. 
The objection sometimes rests upon a false 
idea of personality. It is a pretty familiar ob- 
jection that the form of personal existence is 
incompatible with the notion of infinite spirit, 
that to ascribe personality to God is to bring 
Him down under limitations and make Him 
finite. Personality, however, is not a degrad- 
ing or belittling attribute. It is not a mere 
attribute at all, but, as we have seen, an essen- 
tial form of spiritual existence, necessary to 
give to the idea of spirit coherence and mean- 
ing. Nor is there in it aught to dwarf or 
lower any existence. Search through all the 
universe, and there is found nothing in itself 
higher than personality. It is the highest 
thing we may know. In ascribing it to God, 
it is not necessary to carry over all our human 


118 A REVELATION OF PERSONALITY 


limitations as if they belonged to its essence, 
for they do not. It is not because we are 
finite that we are persons. 

It is alleged that personality necessarily in- 
volves finiteness, that essential to the sense of 
self is the contrast between self and that 
which is not self, and that it is the contact 
with that other than self that creates conscious- 
ness of self. But that contrast between me 
and not-me could not be without the me 
already there. And I could not distinguish 
me from not-me, were I not immediately cer- 
tain of the me. Contact with that outside 
object may make one aware of himself. Self, 
however, is there and known at once. It ts 
not grounded upon anything outside. It is a 
thing in itself. There is a direct sense of self. 
This the external limitation may awaken. But 
it no more creates it than the prince of fairy 
tale created the sleeping beauty he awakened. 
It is true that we, as finite beings, are parts of 
a great whole and, in our place therein, de- 
pendent upon outward conditions for the de- 
velopment of our personality. But the infinite 
I Am is in no such dependence upon anything 
without. Within that self-existent life are all 


A REVELATION: OF PERSONALITY 119 


necessary conditions of perfection and an un- 
limited sphere of personality. 

Indeed, lack of personality, of self-conscious- 
ness and free self-determination, would imply 
imperfection and limitation. By such lack 
men would be reduced to a lower rank, nearer 
the brutes. Such a lack would reduce God to 
a grade below ourselves. Not to be personal 
means to be below those who are persons. 
It were strange to make infinity imply in- 
feriority. 

Personality is the core of spiritual being. 
It remains a question of that central core and 
not of the circumference. Enlarge the latter 
how much so ever, make it to be limitless, and 
still the centre may remain.’ Stretch the 
thought to infinity, and it does not destroy 
the idea of self-knowledge and will. Infinitude 
need not be taken to mean infinite emptiness. 
It does not mean mere negation. It is posi- 
tive. Personal characteristics are not de- 
stroyed, but rather enhanced, by ascribing to 
them infinitude of scope and fulness. 

Our finiteness is a limit, that mocks and mars 
our personality, and makes it something only 
imperfectly realised, something which at its 


120. A REVELATION OF PERSONALITY 


best gives indications of what personality 
might be, without such limit, in the realisa- 
tion of free and full perfection. As says 
Lotze, ‘‘ perfect personality is in God only.”’ 
So far he is right, but not when, in the same 
connection, he casts doubt upon the real per- 
sonality of finite beings.t| Human personality 
is more than a shadow, or semblance, or weak 
imitation. It has reality, because it is grounded 
in the personality of God. In both God and 
man is there true personality ; in man, by 
reason of his finiteness, personality imperfect 
in its development, because that development 
is at once dependent upon and hindered by 


the external world ; in God personality perfect - 


and entire, wanting nothing. 

It has been said by Mr. Herbert Spencer 
that ‘‘ the choice is rather between personality 
and something higher. Is it not just possible 
that there is a mode of being as much tran- 
scending intelligence and will as these transcend 
mechanical motion ?’’? He is obliged to 
concede ‘‘ that we are totally unable to con- 
ceive any such higher mode of being.’’ It is 


1 See App., note 14. 
? Kirst Principles, Part I., chap. v., p. 109. 


a 
ee 


A REVELATION OF PERSONALITY 21 


certain such higher mode has not been re- 
vealed. The word, personal, it is true, may not 
Pesadequatesto (express ‘all that is in} God: 
Considered in the light of its derivation alone, 
it may not accurately express the most char- 
acteristic essentials of that which we mean by 
personality. It is not the name, but the 
essence of the thing, that is important here. 
We know no higher thing, and we have no 
better word for the thing. More than per- 
sonal, as men apply the term to men, God may 
be, in the sense that in Him there is person- 
ality raised to its highest power. But personal, 
at any rate, He would, according to our ex- 
pectation,, reveal’ Himself. to be: In“ our 
study of His self-manifestation, we may look 
to find there nothing that is incompatible 
with personality ; to find that the divine pat- 
tern, while far exceeding the human, is never- 
theless on the same lines in this respect ; that 
it goes beyond our conceptions, and yet in 
transcending includes them ; that God is not 
impersonally without will, heartless, and with- 
out soul ; but that there is an Almighty Will, 
an Omniscient Thought, a boundless Love, 
demanding no less a designation than person- 


122 4 REVELATION OF PERSONA, 


ality, because involving no less than personal 
significance. 

Yes; the noblest manifestations of human 
character, the goodness, purity, holiness, un- 
selfish love, and devoted self-sacrifice, that 
illustrate human life, investing it with the 
lustre of divine significance, really have such 
divine significance, do lead our thought on and 
lift it up, in suggestion, intimation, and pro- 
phetic promise of a supreme realisation of 
these ideals, in perfect fulness, at the culmin- 
ating height of being, the source of all. There 
cannot be these bright beams here and darkness 
inthe sun. There cannot be such beauty and 
glory of personal life, such wealth of potency, 
such rich possibility of progress approaching 
the ideal here, and a blank void there. Reve- 
lation, if it be not a mockery of our highest 
achievement and aspiration, must give us a 
God who does not fail genuinely to realise, 
while in a fulness that goes far beyond, the 
best we have been able to conceive in human 
nature. 


‘“So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, utter- 
most crown— 
And thy love fill infinitude wholly, . . .” 


i - 
eS ee ee ——— SE ee 


| 
| 


A REVELATION OF PERSONALITY 123 


V. Thus is man led on to hope for something 
in God other than a vast void of immensity 
and eternity, which would be a fathomless 
abyss wherein to lose one’s self. Man is led 
to look for a God in whom he may truly come 
to himself. He seeks in God thoughts, feel- 
ings, will. And he finds that thus is God re- 
vealed. In the preceding lecture we consid- 
ered the question whether man can know God. 
That which now concerns us is the question : 
Can God make Himself known? To be able 
to reveal Himself, He must be a personal 
Being. Were He not personal, there would be 
no revealing of self. Revelation requires, as 
the condition of its possibility and the source 
whence it proceeds, personality. In His per- 
sonality we should expect God to be revealed, 
on@esOgensatevealed: -2Godas Spitits, {Lhat 
Spirit thinks and wills. That Spirit, yearning 
after self-communication, became the Father 
of spirits, in order that He might to them 
reveal Himself and with them hold communion. 

It is because God and also man are personal 
that there isrevelation. This revealing is not an 
external and mechanical imparting of truth, by 
arbitrary power, or through artificial methods of 


124 A REVELATION OF PERSONALITY 


communication from God to His creatures. Its 
essential characteristics are what they are, not 
because God is so far apart from man. It is 
rather that the near kinship of man to God, 
through relations of personal life, makes pos- 
sible an intimate intercourse. Men are not left 
to themselves, to feel after God, groping in the 
dark, if haply they might find Him. Seeing 
He is not far from every one of them, He feels 
for them and with them, in yearning sympathy, 
and His is the first movement and approach in 
revelation. It is deep calling unto deep; the 
great deep of the divine fulness of wisdom and 
love calling to the very depth of man’s being, 
in an appeal from personal life to a person who 
may respond. 

To be incapable of such relations were to be 
in capacity below human persons. The God 
whence has come the highest in human nature 
is not to be thought of as forever apart there- 
from, in absolute isolation. He were not the 
Father of spirits, if He could behold His off- 
spring and make no sign. Why should it be 
thought a thing incredible that the living God 
should have expressive power? That cannot 
be impossible for Him, which is given to the 


—: a a 


A REVELATION OF PERSONALITY 125 


creature. The brute creation is not dumb. 
We may say there is no speech nor language, 
but their voices are heard among them. The 
Pildendseitselote,sthembedst its: crys ne the 
ascending scale of life, spirit, meaning person- 
ality, carries with it the possibility of personal 
intercourse with spirit. For Infinite Spirit, 
such intercourse can be limited only by the 
self-imposed limitations in the nature of the 
persons He has created. To Him belongs 
self-expression in a freedom which transcends 
the mechanism of nature. 

Thus we have, not only the immanence of 
the divine energy within all physical forms and 
foieces pub moreover, thes presence, in! Elis 
transcendence, of the Personal God with the 
personal spirits who are His offspring, the 
Holy Spirit witnessing with human spirits that 
they are the children of God. There is a spir- 
itual sphere where, in personal intercourse, 
spirit meets spirit. The methods and meas- 
ures of the divine approach it is not for man 
to stereotype. No iron necessity controls the 
communications. The word of God is not 
bound. Freely His spirit goes forth in blessed 
influence. 


126. A REVELATION OF PERSONALITY 


This personal influence of God upon man is 
inspiration. It is the outcome of His person- 
ality breathing forth life and power. It is only 
upon this personal element, which essentially 
characterises inspiration, that I can now, in 
passing, touch. In the high hour 


‘Of visitation from the living God,” 


the access of the divine personality by no 
means annuls the human. It belongs to man 
to open the door, to welcome and entertain. 
- Inspiration demands response, appropriation 
and assimilation on the part of the spirit 
stirred and quickened by the divine breath. 
As God inbreathes it, and as man breathes it 
in in spiritual inhalation, inspiration becomes 
a vitalising process, renewing life and further- 
ing growth. Indeed, when God has drawn 
nigh to vouchsafe personal communion, there 
has been for man, ‘under the inspiring influence 
of a commanding personality, not only sum- 
mons but uplift to higher standpoints afford- 
ing clearer and larger views. There have come 
illumination and vision. Gross and childish 
notions have been left behind. Man’s knowl- 
edge of God, thus advancing from more to 


1 


MOREY ELATION OF PERSONALITY 127 


more, has grown, as, through communion with 
God, he has grown in power of apprehension 
and in spiritual stature. 

As God has thus renewed His human crea- 
tures with the breath of His inspiration, from 
inexhaustible sources of truth and life, there 
has been advance in revelation ; on His part 
increasing communication, as He has in ever 
larger measure imparted His Spirit ; and on 
man’s part, through that divine inspiration, 
increasing spirituality and appreciation of what 
constitutes personality in himself and in God. 
Revelation is never mechanical. Because 
thoroughly spiritual, it is always personal. 
When God has given His Spirit, He has given 
Himself. So He has come to dwell with the 
spirit of man in intimacy of intercourse and 
communion; and man, through this divine 
self-giving and this personal fellowship, has 
come into closer acquaintance with himself and 
with God, thus, as he has been brought to 
know himself, learning to know God. 

In man’s increasing acquaintance with, and 
realisation of, all that which constitutes per- 
sonality in himself and in God has consisted 
the progress of the revelation. It has meant 


128 A “REVELATION OF PERSONALITY 


for man, through that kinship and acquaintance 
‘with God, a long education. Like every other 
good gift, revelation is from above, coming 
down from the Father of lights. Like every 
other good gift, too, it has come to man as he 
has been able to receive it. Only as man suf- 
fered within himself its enlarging, elevating, 
and purifying influences, could God impart to 
him enlightenment regarding His own spiritual 
nature; andicharacter. “Atitirst eas) manewase 
there could come to him only ‘“‘a beam in 
darkness’’; but it grew, as grew in spirituality 
the human nature by its entrance transfigured 
and transformed. Little by little, the light 
waxed stronger. There shone the slowly 
brightening promise of most gracious purpose. 
The Father of lights would make his personal 
offspring the children of light ; and, at last, 
there broke the day of perfect self-revelation, 
when 


“ God made Himself an awful rose of dawn.” 


Oe 


‘=~. 


v 


El Progressive Revelation 


4 


/ 


“ Non pauct gradus 
qui ducunt hominem ad Deum.” 


Sea) 


PaePROGRESSIVE SRE VET TlOsN 


THE historic revelation of God is registered 
in the Holy Scriptures. The Bible is not.the 
revelation. It records and interprets the reve- \ 
lation, as its literary expression. This dis- 
tinction between the Bible and the revelation 
it records is an important one to note. Just 
when the several parts of the Old Testament 
were committed to writing, what particular 
workmen laboured on each portion of the vast 
task, and what pre-existing materials were 
wrought into the work, are questions of inter- 
est but not of primary and vital importance. 
Records of different dates may be pieced to- 
gether or interwoven. Certain of the records, 
in their present shape, may date from a period 
much later than the events they refer to. The 
revelation may have been given in a different 
order of succession from the chronological 
order of the books which contain the record. 
For example, the books of the law may be com- 


132 A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 
a ee 
paratively late in date of composition, and 
yet the essential portions of the law may have 
been given early and handed down from gen- 
eration to generation before they were reduced 
to their present literary shape. 

It is quite possible to separate these literary 
questions from other more vitally important 
issues.’ Indeed, it is necessary todo so. These 
Scriptures are not like the book of Moham- 
med. The Koran was given practically all at 
once. The Scriptures of the Old Testament 
cover long periods of time and a wide range of 
variety. The Epistle to the Hebrews opens 
strikingly, in the original, with two words which 
describe the Old Testament: ‘‘ by divers por- 
tions and in divers manners.’’ Emphasis is laid 
upon the fragmentary character of the record, 
and upon the variety which makes the Old Testa- 
ment really a library of many kinds of literature. 

It is inevitable that there should be search- 
ing investigation of those divers portions and 
those divers methods. Such criticism, whether 
concerned with the text or with the dates and 
authorship of those Scriptures, need not be 


"Cf. Westcott, The Epistle to the flebrews, p. 493. Also, 
Body, The Permanent Value of Genesis, p. 26. 


A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION i 


feared by one who discerns the character of the 
revelation, and wherein it consists, but may 
with equanimity be left to the experts. As 
the science of botany has helped us to under- 
stand the structure and development of plants, 
so it is to be expected that the science of criti- 
cism will contribute to what we may call the 
natural history of the Bible, and help us toward 
understanding how it was made. Botany 
brought changes in classification and names, 
and criticism may change former ideas regard- 
ing such minor matters as the order of certain 
books and the names of authors. The botan- 
ist, however, may pull the flower to pieces to 
analyse it, but never can find the life; and 
there is in the Bible something the critic, as 
such, cannot, by his scientific analysis, find or 
take away—the divine inspiration which makes 
it live. This is spiritually discerned.  Criti- 
cism and inspiration are on different planes and 
need not interfere with each other. Criticism 
moves in the sphere of the understanding, in- 
spiration in the sphere of the spirit. 


I. We have, in the preceding lecture, glanced 
at the function of inspiration in a revelation 


134 A PROGRESSIVE ‘REVELATION 


of personality. Inspiration is so closely con- 
nected with revelation that it is sometimes not 
easy to draw distinctions between them. God 
is revealed, man is inspired. God reveals 
Himself and inspires man in the same act of 
approach and personal intercourse. As regards 
what is made known, it is revelation; as regards 
the effect upon the immediate recipient, it is 
inspiration. The term revelation implies the 
more regard to the result, inspiration to the 
process. From the human stand-point, revela- 
tion is the more objective, inspiration the more 
subjective side of the process.’ It is certain 
the one side is no less personal than the other. 
Revelation is a disclosure of personal life in 
God. Inspiration is an influence upon the 
personal life of a man. Inspiration has not 
been confined to the men who wrote the Bible. 
That which distinguishes the writers of Holy 
Scripture from other men, and sets their writ- 
ings forever apart from all other writings, is 
not the fact of their inspiration, but the 
uniqueness of the revelation which is there 


* A very different statement of the relation of inspiration to 
revelation is given by Dr. Fairbairn, The Place of Christ in 
Modern Theology, p. 496. See App., note 15. 


i 


_—_ i eo 


A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 135 


recorded, and which is the sublime subject 
transfiguring the whole and making it’ the 
Book. That revelation involved divine inspi- 
ration as a means. 

Personal influence is always invested with 
mystery. Especially mysterious must be that 
divine influence which we term inspiration, for 
it is the inbreathing of a life that transcends 
nature. If we receive their own account from 
the men who themselves experienced this influ- 
ence, there is abundant evidence of something 
that did not arise out of their own choice or 
endeavour. It came to them from without, and 
often as a sudden and irresistible impulse. It 
came sometimes against their own mind and 
will. Its mastering power is described in vivid 
imagery, for example, as a strong hand laid 
upon one. There is a frequent phrase, ‘‘ The 
word of the Lord came.’’ The man became 
conscious of a call, a commission, a message 
which weighed upon him as a burden.! Pos- 
sessed and used as an instrument or organ, he 
comes to his fellow-men with a ‘‘ Thus saith 
the Lord.’’ The matter has been justly de- 


"Cf. Sanday, The Oracles of God, 1V.; also, /uspiration, 
pp. 145-150. 


136 A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 


scribed in a terse sentence: ‘‘ Men spake from 
God, being moved by the Holy Ghost,’’? 
‘‘moved,’’ literally, carried along, by the 
Spirit, as a ship is driven by the wind. 

It is this impelling inspiration which makes 
all the Holy Scriptures one, in the unity of 
the Spirit. They exhibit the highest kind of 
unity, unity in diversity. Scientific study, 
from the historic stand-point, has made it only 
the more plain how composite is the structure 
of the Bible. That study has also more clearly 
brought to view a steady development, to be 
traced through it all. Suppose it to be as 
composite as a mosaic formed with bits of 
stone of various colors and from different 
quarries; yet the pattern of the most perfect 
mosaic work is surpassed by the unity of de- 
sign which, notwithstanding their diversity, 
these Scriptures show. For here there is un- 
folding in the continual progress of life. This 
inspiration was dealing not with dead stones 
but with living men. The human personality, 
howsoever it receded into the background, was 
still there. The man was not, by reason of 
his inspiration, the less himself. It was per- 


Oo Geter i. ol. 


Se 


i 
a 


ee 


A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 137 


sonally, not mechanically, that the Holy Spirit 
employed those instruments. They did not 
speak like a phonograph or write like a type- 
writing machine. With whatever wise passive- 
ness one might await the divine word, the 
inspiration, when it came, was not mechanical 
but dynamic. It came in spiritual energy, 
which raised to their highest power the ener- 
gies of his soul. It came in vital and organic 
force, to him personally. Its illumination 
brought to him vision and insight. Its vivify- 
ing breath had aroused, enlivened, and renewed 
the human spirit. | 

Thus divine inspiration was ever and again 
entering human life in living personal power, 
was continually breathing into the history im- 
pulses of stirring, quickening life, that pushed 
iton and up. And so the progress, to be here 
discerned, is the progress of an education ; 
that is, a leading out and bringing up of human 
life. A revelation which involved a genuine 
education of men must be progressive. It 
is to this progressive character, which distin- 
guishes the revelation, that I would now call 
attention. This progress is thus essentially 
characteristic for two main reasons : because 


138 A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 


the revelation was historic, and because it was 
a revelation of personality. 


II. In the first place, in order to take hold of 
men and really train them, the revelation can 
not be abstract and remote from human life, 
but must enter men’s life and take concrete 
shape in human history. Therefore the 
method of its progress, as has been already 
noted,! was the method of historic movement. 
The revelation came to pass in the course of 
events. It is not to be severed from history. 
It consisted not merely in words but in deeds.’ 
It was not only that God spake now and again 
in oracular utterances. His self-expression 
was largely by other means, and both more 
concrete and more continuous. It was not so 
much what God said as what God wrought. 
He manifested Himself, not only in announcing 
His mind and will, but, moreover, by the slow 
yet sure fulfilment thereof, in divine doings. 
It is the history of that process of fulfilment 
which the Sacred Scriptures register. All else 
is incidental in the onward sweep of that his- 
torical action. The revelation was the unveiling 


1 See Lecture 11.) p,, 62. * See App., note 16. 


ee ee a ee a 


i ae tie Sie 


2 


its 


A’ PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 139 


of God, through His dealings with men, in the 
course of a remarkable history. Accomplished 
in an historical process, the revelation took time, 
and involved advance by degrees and through 
successive stages.’ Thus viewed, it is seen to be 
in accord with the divine action in nature, and in 
this aspect its naturalness stamps it as genuine. 

There was not only the working of divine 
power thus in the movement of history, but, 
moreover, it is an essential matter, wrought 
into the very texture of this historic revela- 
tion, that it is the self-manifestation of a per- 
sonal God to His personal creatures. It was, 
therefore, necessarily gradual. Any genuine 
and intimate knowledge of a person can be en- 
tered into only by degrees, and disclosures of 
such knowledge to persons must be conditioned 
by their capacity and affinity. Not all at once, 
in complete fulness, could even divine power 
make itself known and felt, in any personal 
way. There was required a long education, 
beginning with men at the level where they 
actually were, and from elementary stages 
steadily advancing to higher attainment. The 
history with which we are here concerned was 


Pcs App notenr 7. 


140 A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 


such an education in personality. The per- 
sonal factor is never wanting. We shall observe 
a gradual advance into closer personal relations 
with God and into relations becoming more 
and more ethical. There is a disclosure not 
only of personality in God but of personality 
at its height of moral manifestation. Through 
all runs an increasing purpose of revelation. 
There is more and more an unveiling of divine 
righteousness and love. 


III. Steps in the progress of that education, 
doubtless, were several names for God, which 
are probably prehistoric and now obscure in 
meaning. But, for that early time, each con- 
tained some measure of truth, which was un- 
folded as men slowly learned to know Him by 
name. The name,- El, found in combination 
in ancient proper names, for example, Bethel, 
would seem to have been a primitive Semitic 
designation. With it has been associated the 
idea of strength. The word, Elohim, applied 
to God, has been supposed to express fulness 
of power. The descriptive title which, accord- 
ing to one narrative, was characteristic of the 
patriarchal age is El Shaddai, usually translated 


—— ee 


A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 14! 


God Almighty. Thus marking the beginning 
of the great story of the people of the God of 
Abraham, it apparently denoted advance be- 
yond the notion of mere strength, and conveyed 
a conception of power over-ruling with purpose 
of blessing. 

For a later than the patriarchal period was 
reserved the peculiar and pre-eminent name of 
the Old Testament revelation, which we com- 
monly know as Jehovah, but of which Yahweh 
is probably a more accurate equivalent, the 
precise pronunciation having been lost because 
for ages the Jews, through awe, did not dare 
to pronounce the name. It is not necessary 
for us to enter into intricate questions as to 
the etymology and historic origin of the word. 
We are not concerned to deny that there may 
have once attached to it associations with cer- 
tain natural phenomena, rain or thunder and 
lightning. Nor are we concerned to deny that 
it may have been the name of the tribal deity 
of the Kenites, with worship localised in the 
desert region of Horeb and Sinai. There is 
reason for thinking the name not unknown to 
certain of the Hebrew tribes before the time of 
Moses. That which here concerns us is not its 


142 A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 


possible history before, but its history after, its 
promulgation by Moses. Coming then with a 
sublime sanction, this name carried within it 
the germ of a wonderful unfolding. If it had 
formerly denoted a local divinity, henceforth, 
at all events, it embodied a large and spiritual 
conception, as the name of the God of a people. 
It was adopted by those Hebrew tribes as the 
name of the God to whom they all stood in 
a peculiar relationship, who, although not yet 
seen to be the only God of all the world, was 
their God alone to worship and serve. But 
how came it that this name of their God so 
entirely distinguished itself from the names of 
the gods of peoples surrounding them, for ex- 
ample, from Chemosh, the god of the Moab- 
ites, a people closely akin to them ? 

This name of the God of Sinai, with some 
majestic import, underlies, yes, bears up and 
carries upon itself all that strange Jewish his- 
tory that ensued. It stands for a persistent 
purpose of divine manifestation through that 
history. In the early stages of the history, 
associated with a spirit of hard cruelty and 
vindictiveness, the name becomes more and 
more ethical. A designation peculiarly per- 


A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 143 


sonal, it is significant of spiritual life and, 
therefore, rich in promise of unfolding. It is 
not reasonable to read into the name, at the 
outset, the abstract metaphysical conceptions 
of a far later age. It was rather a deeply 
moral meaning that made the name unique. 
I am—not that which fate, or changeful ca- 
price, or merely abitrary will may determine, 
but—I am that I am; that is, that which my 
character determines. Or, if it be the future 
tense, I will be what I will be; a God, that is, 
not of the past only, but of the future also, liv- 
ing and active, manifested, in aspects ever new, 
through gradual disclosure from generation to 
generation, always in closest relations with 
His people, and unveiled more and more with 
the progress of their history.! 

In that progress, the name is discovered to 
mean the Living One, having not only power, 
but purpose and self-consistent character, in 
a word, personality, revealing Himself as un- 
changeable regarding what He has purposed, 
keeping His promises, faithful to His Cove- 
nant, steadfast both in righteousness and in 


‘Cf. article by Driver, Studia Biblica, vol. i., pp. 3-19. 
Ottley, Bampton Lectures, 1897, pp. 182—201. 


144. A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 


mercy, the Holy One of Israel. To the Jew, 
it was literally the unspeakable name; and 
now, as we look back from a distant day, truly 
ineffable in height and depth is its significance. 
Carrying wrapped up in itself inexhaustible 
wealth of meaning, to be continuously un- 
folded through Jater ages, it is seen to have 
been an august vehicle of historic revelation. 

The peculiarly prophetical title is Yahweh 
Tsebaoth, Lord of Hosts. Applied, perhaps, 
in Israel’s wars to the God of her armies, later 
on, as the state began to totter to its fall, and 
then lay prostrate in ruin, this name, that 
stirred memory and hope, becomes frequent in 
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Haggai, Zechariah and Mala- 
chi. From any martial associations, however, 
in which it may have originated, its meaning 
has been widened and lifted, to include celes- 
tial hosts, the stars of the firmament and 
the armies of heaven. It is, at last, a title 
of sublimest meaning and denotes the divine 
omnipotence. 


IV. The knowledge of God, imparted by slow 
degrees, was given to be potent and creative, 
a vitalising force in human history. By virtue 


Ne ee ee 


A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 145 


of the vital principle inherent in a revelation 
of the living God, it must undergo growth. 
There was an organic development by pro- 
cesses of historical evolution. The important 
factor, selection, was not wanting in the evo- 
lution of revelation. We have selection under 
the closely kindred word, election. There is 
the election of a chosen people. The selec- 
tion was according to fitness. The Hebrews 
were not, like the Romans, practical poll- 
ticians, with aptitude for civil institutions, but 
they were fitted, by their spiritual genius, to 
transmit the knowledge of God and the moral 
fawe) gain, the Greek, in his ‘bright land 
with its wide views of sky and sea, saw things 
in clear outline. Looking forth at the world 
of men and things, he wrote immortal poems 
and carved exquisitely perfect statues. But 
the Hebrew looked within himself, brooding 
upon moral and spiritual ideals. The Greek 
Say eandeamacesthes world see, beauty. «ihe 
Hebrew felt, and made the world feel, the 
sublime, the thunders of Sinai, the fire, the 
black darkness, the tempest. The Greek con- 
fused the divine with the natural. The He- 


brew saw God above nature, upon a throne, 
Io 


146 A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 


high and lifted up. With his spiritual vision, 
he was a missionary of spiritual truth, elect 
that through him all peoples might be blest. 
This national election was accomplished in an 
historical event, momentous and memorable, 
the exodus from Egypt. 

In the unfolding of the revelation there was, 
moreover, an election of individuals. The per- 
sonal factor counted largely here. The truth 
was vitalised in the flesh and blood of men 
gifted above their fellows. Remarkable in 
this history is the part played by leading per- 
sonalities. At the striking of the hour there 
is the man, called, responding to the call, and 
in that vocation finding inspiration. Revela- 
tion of God through a man involves, as we 
have seen, inspiration, God’s inbreathing into 
him; and thus we have a prophet. God spake 
‘in the prophets.’’! Properly, we speak not 
of inspired books, but of inspired men. In 
their persons the word of Yahweh became con- 
crete, so that they were more than speakers or 
writers. They were actors in the history, liv- 
ing factors in the unfolding of the revelation. 
Such have been the holy prophets since the 

wriepois tT, 


a «- 


ee ee ie 


A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 147 


world began. Abraham is called a prophet.' 
With him emerges the idea of a covenant rela- 
tionship, an idea subsequently developed and 
emphasised, until the entire history comes to 
be known as the Old Testament, or Covenant. 
The stately figure of ‘‘the friend of God’”’ 
was, in later ages, invested with an ideal dig- 
nity and a typical significance. It is in vain, . 
however, on this ground to deny that he was 
an historic personage. In his story is deeply 
rooted the later history. An Abraham there 
must have been, to account for a Moses, with 
his mission from “‘ the God of your fathers.’’ 2 

At length there comes upon the scene a 
mastering personality, and the time of Moses 
isa creative epoch. His figure looms up, dim, 
perhaps, in the distance of antiquity, but, 
nevertheless, so large as to cast its shadow 
across all the subsequent centuries. He bound 
the tribes together by a sacred bond, and by 
his resolute will and the fire of his enthusiasm 
created a nation. Nor only so. With the 


1 Gen. xx. 7. 

* Ex. iii. 13, 15, 16. Cf. Kittel, Westory of the Hebrews, 
Vor; po 174-1) Ottley, of ciz,, pp. 111, ¢¢ seg.) Cornill, Azs- 
tory of the People of Israel, p. 34. 


148 A’ PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 


vision and the kindling soul of a religious 
genius, he, humanly speaking, founded a re- 
ligion. ‘‘ There arose not a prophet since in 


>? 


Israel like unto Moses.’ It was through him 
that the name, Yahweh, was made known to 
the people as the God of Israel. Further- 
more, an institution of Mosaic origin was the 
Ark, which was a movable sanctuary. Whith- 
ersoever it was borne, there went the God of 
Israel. This shrine, carried in all their jour- 
neyings and marches, was not only a safeguard 
against their losing their religion through con- 
tact with other peoples, but it also marked a 
spiritual advance, as the symbol of a divine 
presence always in their midst whithersoever 
they went. 

Through Moses came the impulse which 
made the religion of Israel eventually a potent 
moral factor in the world. The Ark was an- 
ciently called the Ark of the Covenant, because 
it contained the two tables of the Decalogue. 
That the Decalogue was given through Moses 
is by some denied, on the ground that a code 
so ethical cannot date from so early an age.! 


1 E.g., see Budde, Zhe Religion of Israel to the Exile, pp. 
32, 33: 


A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 149 


Such denial leaves unexplained the leading 
part played by Moses. Moreover, how came, 
otherwise, that ethical impulse which, it is 
universally granted, was imparted through 
Moses? It is true this was literally a law for 
Israel only, and for those outside there was no 
law. Here was, nevertheless, a foundation 
whereon to build the completest structure of 
human duty. Howsoever narrow was the im- 
mediate application, here was an enunciation 
of the primal and essential relations of man to 
Podeancsofemen to mensysouchka.codesforna 
nation was potentially the moral law for all 
mankind. Herein were enfolded possibilities 
of widest application, of largest ethical de- 
velopment, of highest and deepest spiritual 
interpretation. 

In view of the facts and of his part in the 
history, entirely reasonable seems the account 
that Moses was elect to a higher degree of 
divine self-disclosure than had yet been vouch- 
safed. ‘‘ The LORD spake unto Moses face to 
face,’’! ““ mouth to mouth, even manifestly, 
and not in dark speeches.’’? Amid the soli- 
tudes and sublimity of Sinai, a Presence con- 


1 Ex. xxxiii, II. 2 NUM axles: 


150 A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 


fronted him, touched and thrilled him. When 
the awful name, Yahweh, came to fim to 
stand for a God who cared for right and de- 
manded righteousness of life and heart; when 
there flashed upon him a conception of Deity 
that had not been known or thought before, 
a God who was Lord of personal life and 
author of the moral law; the luminous con- 
ception was a light from the living God reveal- 
ing Himself. That revelation of God pos- 
sessed Moses. In the consciousness thereof, 
he towered above his age, as he delivered the 
Ten Commandments from One who said, “ I 
am Yahweh, thy God.”’ 

Moses claimed and discharged the func- 
tions of God’s interpreter and organ of com- 
munication with the people. About his name 
is gathered the whole mass of the torah, or 
law, as expressing the divine will. Likewise, 
as interpreter of God, he foreshadowed the 
long and momentous history of prophetism. 
He was the greatest of the prophets, and all 
the rest were his successors. It is hardly pos- 
sible to over-estimate the original impulse, of 
quickening and creative power, manifested in 
the mission of Moses. Through his instru- 


A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 151 


mentality, vital and germinal forces began to 
work, and the world began to learn its first 
great lessons regarding divine holiness and 
personality, and regarding the dignity and con- 
secration of human life. 

We can glance only at the more forceful 
actors of this onward-moving drama. Every 
age has felt the royal charm of David, cifted 
soldier-king and minstrel-hero, founder of the 
holy city, about whose name clung memories 
and hopes, and poetry and prophecy gathered 
glory, Israel’s bright particular star, shedding 
a lustre on the after history of the world. 
Later, the counterpart of Moses, the founder, 
is Elijah, the vindicator and restorer: a figure 
that rises up in solitary and titanic grandeur; 
with will inflexible as iron, and character like 
adamant; fearlessly battling for spiritual truth 
and freedom; sternly insisting upon absolute 
right, come what may; all on fire with blazing 
zeal; marvellous man working marvels, now 
here, now there, like a supernatural appari- 
tion; incarnation of moral sublimity, personi- 
fication of God’s righteousness. 


V. Elijah begins an epoch. It is time to 


152 A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 


consider prophecy. This is a distinctive feature 
in the history of the Hebrews. It is, more- 
over, the distinguishing principle which made 
that history to differ from the history of the 
surrounding peoples. In prophecy Hebraism 
had its soul, through which came its force and 
inspiration. Prophecy illustrates the power, 
so incalculable, of the personal factor already 
referred to. In that remarkable history the 
prophets were potent, and the secret one of 
them declares: ‘‘ Truly I am full of power by 
the spirit of Yahweh.’’! It was a perennial 
Pentecost, that quickened and consecrated the 
history. 

In prophecy, we see again a progressive de- 
velopment from rude beginnings. It arose 
out of the tendency to religious ecstasy which 
characterises the Semitic race. Not only the 
Hebrews, but their heathen neighbors, had 
their prophets; for example, the prophets of 
Baal. Among the Hebrews went roving turbu- 
lent enthusiasts, not unlike, perhaps, the danc- 
ing and howling:dervishes of to-day. “‘ Saul 
among the prophets’’ was thought to be in 
unworthy company. This crude and fanatical 

* Mic. iii. 8, 


A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 183 


outgrowth of religious excitement divine truth 
lays hold of, with its vitalising and enriching 
touch, and transmutes it into a spiritual force 
of the highest order. 

It was, perhaps, Samuel the Seer who or- 
ganised those wandering bands into societies, 
or schools of the prophets. The influence of 
prophecy, however, depended not upon an or- 
der, but upon men who stand forth in striking 
individuality, as, for example, Elijah. Such 
men we find moving through their time, mark- 
ing and making its history, like the princely 
Isaiah, or the indomitable Jeremiah. The ec- 
static and emctional excitement which seems 
to have characterised early prophecy has been 
left behind. It is not noticeable in the great 
prophets. They were practical men, exerting a 
strong influence upon national affairs. They 
were earnest patriots, standing forth in the 
forefront of critical epochs, and sensitive as 
stormy petrels to coming tempests of catas- 
trophe. This was no mere sagacious forecast- 
ing, but rather the far sight and keen hearing 
of faith. They were men of deeper insight 
and wider outlook than their contemporaries. 
Nor were they the voice of their time. The 


154 A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 


true prophet went against the judgment of his 
generation and illustrated an heroic individu- 
alism. It is not the spirit of their age that 
speaks through them. To their age they 
brought truth it knew not. 

In the eighth and seventh centuries before 
Christ, repeated strokes of calamity were em- 
ployed for the discipline of Israel. The great 
mission of prophecy was to interpret this dis- 
cipline, and thereby transform the faith in a 
national God into something far larger and 
nobler. The people, even when they wor- 
shipped their God alone, were far from realis- 
ing that He was the God of other nations also. 
That stage of limited belief had served a pur- 
pose, in forming the innermost centre and core 
about which Jewish Monotheism might round 
itself, This intense faith, in One who was 
their God only, had brought Him near, as very 
real and personal and in a peculiarly close re- 
lation. Now, however, in the shadow of im- 
pending disaster, there pressed the terrible 
question: did their God not care, or was He 
powerless, to save them from the resistless 
Assyrian ? 

In the face of that dilemma, the prophets, 


A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION se 


divinely taught, had to re-interpret Yahweh 
and proclaim Him anew, as One who cared 
more for righteousness than for any single 
nation. They proclaimed a God who was not 
only personal, but, supremely, moral. Through 
them came the revelation of personality having 
its essential glory in righteousness and _ holi- 
ness; and holiness, at first meaning little more 
than separateness, was, in the advance of this 
revelation, invested more and more with an 
ethical and a spiritual significance. God’s per- 
sonal character was the burden of their teach- 
ing. Sucha Deity could not be the God ofa 
single people. He was the God of right every- 
where, the righteous ruler of the world, the 
only God. It was such a God whom Amos, 
the pioneer in prophetic literature, proclaimed. 
His denunciations of divine judgment, and 
those of later prophets, overpass the bounda- 
ries of Israel. Not many years after Amos 
proclaimed the Ruler and Judge, Hosea ex- 
pressed in moving accents the yearning pity 
and love of God, and, in the Southern King- 
dom, the strain is taken up by Jeremiah and 
others. There is proclamation of God’s lov- 
ing kindness and tenderness of compassion, 


156 A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 


and at last, in Jonah, with striking breadth 


of application, is set forth His mercy over 
all. 


VI. So the prophet spoke for God. The 
word means spokesman, forth-teller rather than 
foreteller. With those men, however, their 
Inspiration implied a breath of pure and divine 
idealism, and, in its clarifying power, they 
became men of vision. They saw afar off the 
coming of a kingdom of God. In the Spirit 
they were lifted up to catch foregleams of a 
day that for others was yet below the hori- 
zon, and they became the heralds of a growing 
Messianic hope. 

Into the Messianic hope entered certain 
primeval traditions: the Eden promise of vic- 
tory; the promise of blessing in Abraham’s 
seed; the) isceptre, of- Judah; also! Balaamie 
vision of a star out of Jacob, and the prophet 
to be raised up like unto Moses. A start- 
ing-point of rich development was Nathan’s 
oracle regarding one upon the throne of 
David who should be God’s son. Thereafter, 
prophetic hopes clustered about a Davidic 
king, victor over foes and yet a prince of 


7 


A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION Ty, 


peace. One after another of the royal line 
passed away; yet there lingered the unfad- 
ing, and even brightening, splendour of a 
persistent ideal. 

At length prophetic vision looks farther on, 
even to a personal coming of Yahweh bringing 
terrors of judgment and blessedness of joy. 
A “day of Yahweh’”’ was to be the turning- 
point of history. The two ideas continue side 
by side, and deliverance is looked for, now 
from the anointed king, now from the Lorp 
Himself. The picture has its scenery from 
the prophet’s own time. But behind the de- 
tail of the foreground there are far vistas, and 
a dim background stretches away, in the mys- 
terious perspective of the prophetic Spirit, 
brooding on things to come, who spake by 
the prophets. The Messianic hope is set in 
an historical framework and shapes itself in 
local and temporal expectations. Yet, withal, 
there is an element that transcends such limits. 
There is in Isaiah’s child-prophecies, for ex- 
ample, a largeness of language that suggests 
a boundless outlook, and that, in fact, has been 
found to be fitted for the explicit expression 
of a remote and sublime fulfilment. 


158 A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 


In the fall of the monarchy and the dire 
calamities of the people, the stress of troublous 
times forced prophecy into a new hope of re- 
demption through suffering. This finds cul- 
minating expression in the pathetic passional 
of the great prophet of consolation, which we 
have in the fifty-second and fifty-third chap- 
ters of Isaiah. The faithful remnant is por- 


‘ 


trayed as the “‘ servant of Yahweh.”’ This 
representative sufferer pours out his soul unto 
death. 

Throughout Messianic prophecy there may 
be traced, on the whole, a spiritualising ten- 
dency. External and material imagery yields 
to larger and deeper conceptions, as there is 
inspired an ideal ever more spiritual. Also, 
expectations bound up with the institutions of 
monarchy and official priesthood give way, 
largely, to conceptions which recognise the 
relations of the individual soul to God. The 
personal note heard in the tenderness of Ho- 
sea, and deepened in Jeremiah, is more and 
more dominant. Even the prophecies of the 
faithful community are so individualised that 
they lend themselves in application to Him 
whom later ages have called the Redeemer. 


A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 189 


And at length there is, in Daniel, the vision 


ae ba 


of “* one like unto a son of man. 

Thus profound insight passes into the fore- 
sight of a dawning anticipation. The vision 
is often dim and vague in outline; yet there is 
a growing light which at times gleams forth in 
startling flashes of what seems now minute 
prediction, as those men spake, being moved 
by the Holy Ghost. We are coming to see 
that the entire history, whereof they are the 
tongues, was in truth prophetic, as an evolu- 
tion of gracious purpose. Each critical scene 
was typical and the whole story tended to an 
issue in the fulness of time. Messianic proph- 
ecy is not a startling exception now and again. 
It is the essential spirit of the whole. As said 
St. Augustine, ‘‘ the Old Testament is a prom- 
sen gure. +4 


VII. Only through education in personality 
could come a faith in immortality, while men 
were learning to think of their personal life as 
bound up with the living God who had revealed 
Himself to them. For evidence that He had, 
in fact, made Himself known to men, we have 


1 Serm. iv., De Jacob et Esau, 9. 


160 A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 


the Psalms. These sacred poems so voice the 
confident conviction of personal relationship 
to God, that they have been for thousands of 
years employed to express the sense of that 
divine fellowship. Has not the great problem 
been solved? Is not God known to men who 
can write such lyrics of spiritual communion 
with Him? 

Centred in convictions so intensely personal, 
the belief in one God is an assured possession 
for His children, secure even as shall later be 
unfolded the further truth of a divine mani- 
foldness in that unity. This closely personal 
relationship cannot remain a privilege re- 
stricted to a particular nation. Such a faith 
must transcend all narrow limits. The process 
of expansion is only accelerated by national 
disaster and by exile. The horizon of the 
revelation has ever widened, and the elect peo- 
ple becomes “‘ my salvation unto the end of 
the earth, * 

Evidence of that process of expansion is to 
be found in the writers of the Wisdom litera- 
ture, ‘‘ the Humanists’’1! of Israel. To come 
to them, after the idealism of prophecy, is a 


1 Cheyne, Job and Solomon, p. 119. 


A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 161 


striking transition. Largely lacking the high 
spirituality that characterises the prophetic 
literature, they exhibit a greater breadth of 
treatment, viewing life and human nature in 
their more general aspects. The effect of con- 
tact with the Gentile world may be traced in 
The Proverbs, a, treatise on practical ethics, 
appealing to common sense and the experi- 
ence of mankind; in Job, with its varied allu- 
sions; in Ecclesiastes, with its evidences of 
wide observation and acquaintance with Hel- 
lenistic influences. 

These books form a link between the He- 
brew prophecy and the ethical and philosophi- 
cal thought of other peoples, in an age of 
widening conceptions. Job and Ecclesiastes, 
indeed, have an outlook and an insight which 
make them belong to no one age. Of these 
books it might be said that their interest and 
value have grown with the lapse of the cen- 
turies. The book of “‘the Debater,’’ with 
its oscillation from pleasure-seeking to satiety 
and weariness, its questioning and doubt and 
melancholy, its utterance of a sense of the 
aimlessness of life and the vanity of the world, 


of pessimism, of the fruitlessness and sad mis- 
II 


162 A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 


ery of scepticism, might seem to be written 
for this present age, whose particular perplexi- 
ties and questionings it foreshadows. And 
Job, with its searching into the very depths of 
the problem of suffering, is at once a literary 
treasure and a possession of the soul, to be 
cherished by humanity in all time. If not 
strictly Messianic, this great book is prepara- 
tory to the coming of the Man of sorrows. It 
so presents its profound problem, as to be a 
worthy introduction to the solution of the 
mystery, in the revelation of the Cross. The 
ancient work of genius were a noble porch 
leading no whither, were there not that sanc- 
tuary of sorrow. 


VIII. Among the world’s religious books, 
the Old Testament is unique in its story of 
an historical development of divine revelation. 
It is a long distance from those early begin- 
nings. What may we gain from this general 
survey ? The education of a people to know 
God must needs be a revelation progressing 
from less perfect to more perfect stages. A 
progressive revelation must be viewed as a 
whole, and the entire process measured and 


A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 163 


estimated by its final outcome, which in the 
mext lecture is to occupy our attention. 

‘Thence is thrown light upon difficulties in 
the early stages, confronting us, for example, 
in low conceptions of the Deity, and in sensu- 
ous and even abhorrent elements of worship. 
What more natural than that rudimentary 
stages in that long education should thus be 
encountered ? The earlier stages must have 
involved what was imperfect and defective, 
not merely less truth in quantity, but things 
in quality less perfectly true, things that were 
true, that is, only for that period. If the for- 
mer revelation had not been imperfect, the 
perfect had not been needed. The foregoing 
stages served their purpose of education. In 
behalf of those ancient Scriptures, St. Chrys- 
ostom claims that their virtue is shown in 
that we now see them to be defective. ‘‘ For 
their appearing such now, is the greatest com- 
mendation of them. For had they not trained 
us well, and made us susceptible of the higher 
precepts, they would not now have appeared 
Sucline 

Those things that shock the moral and spir- 


* Homily xvii. On the Gospel according to St, Matthew, 


164 A FROGRESSIVE KEY ELALION 


itual sense to-day were incidental, transitional, 
and destined, in due time, to be done away. 
It must be remembered it was a process of 
development. It was in the very midst of a 
state of society illustrated by those things, 
that the revelation took root, grew and un- 
folded, as the seed grows and unfolds in the 
soil wherein it germinates. Such things be- 
longed to the revelation no more than to the 
sprouting acorn belong the particles of earth 
wherein it strikes the fibres of its roots. What- 
ever in its environment it took up into itself, 
in so doing the revelation transmuted. What 
could not be so taken up and transmuted, 
divine truth more and more freed itself from, 
as the young tree, in its vigorous growth, 
throws off the foreign matter in the earthy 
mould and thrusts itself forth in distinction 
therefrom. For the development involved 
not only that negative purification, but, posi- 
tively, a vigour of progressive life, pushing 
up and out, with the continuous pressure of 
organic growth. 

At last, like some immemorial tree, through 
the ages had grown the revelation, rooting 
itself far down in the depths of an antiquity 


A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 165 
ae ee ae ee Tv) Wipes We echt, 
buried beneath the deposit of time, and stretch- 
ing its branches ever more widely. Even that 
which might have seemed retrogression, namely, 
the external and separatist legislation that was 
developed, and the hard narrowness that Juda- 
ism manifested, after the exile, all this served 
as an outside protecting bark of the tree, while 
the vital truth within, making height and 
breadth, was preserved to bless, at last, the 
world. 

Within the limits of a single lecture, it has 
been impossible to do more than suggest the 
marvellous processes of elevation and of ex- 
pansion, whereby this national and exclusive 
religion was more and more universalised, in 
the direction of a world-wide hope of a king of 
the nations, and also individualised and spir- 
itualised into lofty types of personal piety 
waiting for a God and Saviour. There has 
been nothing like this elsewhere. Other re- 
ligions have stood still or retrograded. There 
has been in them no such power of progressive 
development. They have shown each its meas- 
ure of light. But in none of them has it been 
a light that shined more and more. It was 
not a dawn, In this story, it was far other- 


' _ =p til. Oh hia = to 
yee hs Te > aCe ee ee 


166 A PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 


wise. Here men were watching for break of 
day. Generations were in expectation of Him 
who should come. And, in this forward-mov- 
ing history, 


« . . far off His coming shone.” 


* 


UIT 


Che Revelation Consummated: 
Good in Christ 


And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, 

This is my Son, my chosen: hear ye him. 

And when the voice came, Jesus was found alone. 
—ST. LUKE ix, 35, 36. [R. V.] 


-# 


ii eek EV EEATION® CONSUM: 
ESAS ID) os SeTOMOy ION) ACIBBRIES IP 


I. AT last, in the fulness of the time, He 
came. The Son of Mary confessedly marks the 
era of most notable advance in the world’s reli- 
gious history. In Him, bringing in this epoch, 
the historic revelation reaches its culmination. 
The progressive unfolding of that age-long 
manifestation we have found to consist in the 
increasing importance of the personal factor. 
It might be expected that there would be, 
as in the swelling theme of some great sym- 
phony, more and more dominant the note of 
personality. When we contemplate Jesus 
Christ, we find that here the personal is all 
in all. 

1. The sources of our information are the 
Gospels. Of these, three are biographies, S1V- 
ing in synopsis the story of a personal life, and 
hence termed Synoptics; and the last presents, 
as it were, the dramatic portraiture of a per- 


170 THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 


son. These Gospels thus set before us a per- 
sonal character. As there drawn, this personal 
character has engaged the attention of the civ- 
ilised world and held it by a spell of fascina- 
tion. For its equal has not been beheld before 
or since. In Jesus Christ men saw One who 
was sinless. In.all the long history of human- 
ity this is a unique and solitary phenomenon, 
the signal and precious exception. The im- 
pression in this regard made upon them who 
companied with Him is unmistakable. He 
was man among men, living their life, in all 
points tempted like as they are, yet without 
sin. Critical study, through succeeding cen- 
turies, having examined with searching scru- 
tiny, has found no fault in this man. To all 
the generations has come that challenge: 
‘“ Which of you convicteth me of sin ?”’ 
Observe, it is not merely that He is exter- 
nally free from reproach. It is, moreover, to 
be remembered that here is One who required 
something more than outward righteousness, 
whose method of inwardness dealt with motive 
and disposition and profoundly deepened the 
conception of the repentance He demanded; 
One who was quick and unerring in detection 


THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 17] 


of wrong, throwing a search-light upon sin 
lurking in secret and hidden in hearts; One 
whose wrath against hypocrisy blazed forth in 
withering scorn and consuming indignation; 
yet, in a single remarkable particular, this man 
never spake as all other men have to speak. 
In this same Person, so keenly sensitive to 
wrong and with insight so penetrating, there 
can be discovered no slightest trace of any- 
thing like repentance or even compunction. 
There is not a syllable of confession, no breath 
of prayer for pardon, no faintest sigh of regret 
for fault or mistake. That He was a hypo- 
crite is a supposition which has never been and 
cannot be entertained. That He was a self- 
deceived fanatic His manifest sanity and sweet 
reasonableness make it impossible to think. 
If He were neither a hypocrite nor a fanatic, 
then we are bound to believe that He, who so 
unerringly knew what was in man, in Himself 
knew no sin, that there was no least conscious- 
ness of sin in Him, that in Him was no sin. 

It were difficult, indeed, to over-estimate 
the significance of this fact of a sinless being 
as the consummate flower of human history. 
If, in the progressive revelation we have been 


172 THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 


considering, the history of man constituted the 
highest stage of unfolding, in order to a fuller 
revealing of God in man, then, in man at his 
highest and best, the manifestation must have 
reached the supreme height of its fulness. 
What more fitting or more adequate medium 
of perfect revelation can be conceived than 
perfect humanity without consciousness of sin, 
as it were the unsullied mirror for a true re- 
flection of the Most High ? 

2. In the contemplation of Jesus Christ 
there is encountered a further and most nota- 
ble fact; namely, His personal attitude toward 
men. He presents a contrast to all other great 
religious teachers, in the nature of the claims 
He makes; claims weighted with such em- 
phasis of assertion that they cannot be ex- 
plained away, claims that cannot be eliminated 
from His teaching, so inseparably are they 
woven into its texture. That character which 
we have considered is marked pre-eminently by 
transparent sincerity, by unselfishness, and by 
humility. Now His teaching is as characteris- 
tically stamped by the prominence into which 
He puts forward Himself. Such was its pre- 
vailing tenour. Its purpose was to draw men 


THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 173 


to His own person. The gospel He preached 
was Himself. Moreover, so transcendent is 
that character, that at no point does it fail to 
sustain the tremendous strain of the most 
amazing claims. Never man spake of himself 
as did this man, exalting Himself, as we shall 
see, to a degree beyond which language could 
not go. None the less, He has continued, to 
be the world’s ideal of self-abnegation and 
self-sacrifice and, for all the generations, the 
meek and lowly Jesus. 

3. These personal claims are based upon 
His personal consciousness. He knows whence 
Heicame. As regards the Deity, Jesus Christ 
is more than “‘ the master of them who know..’’ 
He alone so knows as to be able to make 
others know.! His knowledge of God is im- 
mediate, and other men must get their knowl- 
edge through His mediation. This unique 
man had a consciousness of divine truth as 
clear and cloudless as the serene Syrian sky 
into which He gazed. Nay, whatever may 
have been the limitations of His life on this 
earth, His vision of God was shut in by no 
earthly horizon. No cloud obscured His per- 

Sir aviatt extn 2 7 


174. THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 


ception. No doubt confused His teaching. 
No hesitation marred His utterance. His 
speech was always sure and certain. There is 
the tone of clearest distinctness and of calmly 
majestic assurance in those invitations and 
imperative demands. ‘‘ Come unto me.” “I 
am’ the truth.’'s “‘ Learn of, me.~-~) Hollow 
me.’’ Upon this unparalleled consciousness 
is based His revelation. He speaks that He 
doth know and testifies that He hath seen. 

4. The revelation of Jesus Christ, in its con- 
tent and in the method of revealing, was essen- 
tially spiritual; that is, personal. As regards 
the matters made known, it was no mere im- 
parting of information or of formal instruc- 
tion. He elaborated no theories and gave no 
formulas of mental philosophy, taught no codi- 
fied scheme of ethics, imposed no ready-made 
system of divinity. His epigrammatic sayings 
were largely in the shape of paradox, wherein 
was a meaning more profound than of the let- 
ter. His favorite vehicle of instruction was 
picturesque and vivid story-telling, wherein, be- 
neath the literal, lay the spiritual sense. His 
teaching was thus not abstract, but concrete 
and vital, because personal. 


o 


THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED Ps 


A signal characteristic of His method was 
this touch of personality. His was a revela- 
Morewy person, © Lhe Buddhas taught. the 
Christ revealed. In His own person He was 
the truth He taught. Men regarded those 
lineaments of perfect goodness, and they saw 
that, in the face of Jesus Christ, whereunto 
something in their own hearts bore witness and 
confirmation. They beheld that embodiment 
of righteousness and holiness, and they saw 
realised before their eyes the divine law they 
knew within themselves. In their ears were 
accents whereof that still small voice was as 
a faint echo. They observed that stainless 
purity, that inexhaustible compassion as He 
went about always doing good, and they were 
won to follow and belong to Him. 

It was a revelation of life. Men saw what 
His life was, what theirs might strive to be, 
and His personal life touched and laid hold of 
theirs with mighty persuasion and mastering 
power. They became His disciples, His schol- 
atsecousit at. bis feet and: learn, not.sounuch 
about truth and things of salvation, as to learn 
Christ, that they might know Him. Where 
they did not understand Him, they felt Him 


176 THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 


and they knew Him. This was the secret of 
His power. It was the vital touch and force- 
ful grasp of personal life. It was His winning 
and commanding personality that drew to 
Him, and held, leal and loyal souls as by mag- 
netic attraction. It was the royal majesty of 
His person that*made Him Master and King 
of men. The Roman governor says, not more 
in irony *than-in awe, Art thou*a (King: 
then ?’’ And the Prisoner, because the truth 
to which He witnesses and the person He is 
are one and the same, replies: “‘ Thou sayest 
it, for ] am a King.’’ He taught men as hav- 
ing authority, and not as their scribes, who 
were only guardians of the sacred books. His 
was a personal authority over men. He was 
not a herald, like the prophet who proclaimed 
a‘‘ Thus saith the Lord.’’ His was the procla- 
mation by sovereign authority itself. “* Verily, 
verily, I say unto you.’’ What now did He 
say ? 

In considering His words, it is still neces- 
sary to.remember the person behind the words. 
More important than anything He said is Jesus 
Christ Himself.1. His words have their in- 


* See App., note 18. 


i. 


THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 177 


estimable value as utterances of that person- 
ality. By their means we may interpret that 
personality of Jesus Christ, and learn who and 
what He was, because they express His con- 
sciousness of Himself in relation to God and 
men. What, then, were His conceptions of 
Himself ? 

5. As regards that foregoing history of the 
chosen people of God, He crowns and tran- 
scends it all. Prophets and kings desired to 
see the things which His disciples saw. He is 
ereater than Jonah, than Solomon, than father 
Abraham. In Him the long line of prophecy 
is fulfilled. Culmination of all that sacred 
story, greater than the Law, the Sabbath, the 
holy temple itself, He is Messiah, the Christ, 
the anointed King and promised Deliverer. 
Upon this momentous mission He has been 
sent. To this august office He is anointed 
with the Holy Ghost and with power, when 
by the river bank the Spirit in a bodily form 
descends to abide upon Him. Immediately 
follows the Temptation, that significant strug- 
gle, arising out of this exalted vocation and 
consciousness, to determine at the threshold 
of His ministry how He will employ the Mes- 


I2 


178 THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 


sianic gifts and powers. On His return He 
announces Himself as fulfilling the prophecy 
of Messiah: ‘* The Spirit of the Lord is upon 
me, because he anointed me to preach good 
tidings to the poor.’’! He proclaims the king- 
dom and accepts salutation as the Messianic 
King. He claims that He performs the works 
of Messiah.? When the high priest asks, ‘‘ Art 
thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed ?’’ 
He answers, “‘ I am.’’3 | 

He was, however, far from being such a 
Messiah as the Jews generally expected. In- 
deed, as regards Messianic prophecy, it was 
only its darker side, where were depicted in 
sombre tone the faithful prophet and suffering 
servant, that He fulfilled with a minute literal- 
ness. The predictions of a reign in triumph- 
ant glory He appropriated to Himself, not, 
however, as already realised, but as prophecies 
yet to be fulfilled in the future. Such a Mes- 
siah, with no outward splendour in the pres- 
ent, and promising for the future a glory which 
was other than political and earthly, could not 
fail to disappoint the popular expectation. 


*St. Luke iv. 17-21. 2 St. Matt. xi. 2-6. 
3 St. Mark xiv. 61. 


THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 179 


Inevitably His conceptions came into collision 
with those cherished by the Jews of that day. 
They thought of the Christ as David’s son, 
like him, an earthly king reigning over a tem- 
poral kingdom. But it was more important to 
conceive of the Christ as David’s Lord. The 
true idea of Messiah contained elements at 
once more lofty and more profound than the 
popular notions. These more spiritual and 
divine elements Jesus revealed. 

In this connection must be considered the 
name which, used in the Gospels by no one 
else, Jesus employs in the Synoptics no less 
than threescore and nine times, and which is 
thus His own peculiar title for Himself, “‘ Son 
Ginais al owthatesolemni questions “Art 
thou the:Christ ?*’ He replies, ~~ Iam, and ye 
shall see the Son of man sitting at the right 
hand of power, and coming with the clouds of 
In this and other connections the 


>’ 


mae 


heaven. 
designation has evidently a Messianic refer- 
ence. Here and also when, in earlier discourse 
to His disciples, He speaks of “‘ the sign of the 
Son of man,’’ He apparently refers to the sig- 
nificant description in the seventh chapter of 
the Book of Daniel: ‘‘ Behold, there came with 


180 THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 


the clouds of heaven one like unto a son of 
man, and he came éven to the Ancient of days, 
and they brought him near before him. And 
there was given him dominion, and glory, and 
a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations and 
languages should serve him: his dominion is 
an everlasting dominion which shall not pass 
away, and his kingdom that which shall not be 
destroyed.’’ Zhe Son of man is the sublime 
personage of that famous vision.! 

It is this title, thus invested with loftiest 
associations, which Jesus takes as His own 
favourite designation of Himself. As such, it 
contains a breadth of reference and a depth 
of meaning beyond all Jewish conceptions. 
Now He associates the title with most august 
functions: forgiving sins, establishing the king- 
dom of God, exercising lordship over the Sab- 
bath, judging all nations. Now it is applied 
to His personal abasement, His poverty, His 
ill-repute and misconception by men, His ap- 
proaching sufferings and death. As employed 
by Him, the designation overpasses all na- 
tional limits. It implies a unique relation to 


’ For a full discussion regarding the source of the title, see 
Stalker, Zhe Christology of Jesus, chap. ii. 


THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 181 


humanity. He who bears it is man of men, 
related to all the race.t He also represents 
the race as man, the ideal and archetype. He, 
moreover, has a lofty pre-eminence above 
the race as ¢ke man, bearing a sublime com- 
mission to all mankind, clothed with authority 
to rule and judge them, to pardon and to 
save. 

In the Fourth Gospel, likewise, this title is 
used by no one else except in quoting His 
words. By Him it is employed even more 
strikingly. It occurs here in the loftiest con- 
nection, for example, “the heaven opened, 
and the angels of God ascending and descend- 
ing upon the Son of man,’’ and again, “‘ he 
that descendeth out of heaven, even the Son 


tL 


of man.’’ In this Gospel, also, the designa- 
tion conveys the widest reference to mankind 
universally. He has authority to execute the 
general judgment ‘* because He is the Son of 
ial ealicecterialciferitssthe -ciftrot the oon) of 
man. Where the title is used with regard to 


His death, the Son of man is “‘ lifted up that 


1 «The Son of man is no man’s son, isas it were the child 
or offspring of the race.”—Fairbairn, Zhe Place of Christ 
in Modern Theology, p. 364. 

f 


182 THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 


whosoever believeth may in Him have eternal 
life.’’ In order to have that life, men are to 
eat the flesh and to drink the blood of this 
Son of man. In the hour of the impending 
Passion, the Son of man is glorified. As 
the grain of wheat, dying, shall bear fruit, 
so from His death shall come the great har- 
vest; all men drawn unto Himself. Thus the 
Son of man, in nature one with the race of 
men, yet stands in some unique and tran- 
scendently momentous relation to the whole 
race. 

What that relation may be, we shall find 
more fully revealed as we pass on to another 
title, the Son of God. In the Old Testament 
applied to Israel collectively, as the elect peo- 
ple, and to Israel’s Messianic king as elect to 
his office, it bore somewhat the character of 
an official title. There is a suggestion of this 
in the Gospels, as it is used by the tempter 
and by the demoniacs. When the centurion, 
on the other hand, said, ‘‘ Truly this was a son 
of God,’’ he may have had in mind a hero of 
divine descent. 

In its official. sense, this title is rarely, if 
ever, on the lips of Jesus. Indeed, the title 


THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 18 3 


is employed by Him in the Synoptics not at 
all, and very seldom in St. John, although 
here its use by others conveys deeper and 
higher meanings. With Himself, whatever it 
contained of official significance, however ex- 
alted, would seem to have yielded to a sense 
of personal relations which it might carry. A 
recognition of these personal relations He ex- 
presses when, in boyhood, He speaks of ‘‘ my 
Father’s house,’’ and, also, with His dying 
breath, when He adds the name to the verse 
of the Psalter, and says, ‘‘ Father, into thy 
hands I commend my spirit.”’ Never could 
He have forgotten that voice out of heaven, 
‘Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well 
Pieased,, 9 lhe) memory is wpresent’ as He 
speaks, ever and again, in very intimately per- 
Sonal connection, of God as ~~ 


LAS 


my Pather, 
and explicitly distinguishes His own sonship 
from that of other men, ‘‘ my Father and your 
Father. ’’ While rarely Himself using the 
title, Son of God, He does employ, and most 
impressively, not in St. John alone, but in the 
Synoptics also, the correlative terms, ‘‘ the 
podmecnd. the Father. * 

In His chosen designation, the Son of man, 


184 THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 


there are implied unique relations to human- 
ity. Not less evidently, in this remarkable 
language referring to the Father and the Son, 
there finds expression a consciousness of cer- 
tain personal relations to God, of a unique 
and exclusive kind, which no mere man could 
sustain. He makes reference to intimate rela- 
tions of mutual knowledge and reciprocal love 
and common glory, which antedate the world. 
There is between the Father and the Son per- 
fect oneness and there is community of life. 
From this eternal fellowship comes, in time, 
the Son, sent by the Father, to give the great 
revelation. And He utters memorable words, 
which bear the impress of a consciousness that 
is superhuman and has its home amid the hid- 
den things of God: ‘‘ All things have’ been 
delivered unto me of my Father: and no one 
knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither 
doth any know the Father, save the Son, and 
he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal 
him.’’! In His keeping is the profound secret. 
Coming unto Him and learning of Him, all the 
weary and heavy laden shall find rest unto 
their souls. 


-St. Matt. xi. 27, 


THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 185 


II. In the Son there is revelation of the God- 
head. There is a primary revelation in na- 
ture. “ For the invisible things of him since 
the creation of the world are clearly seen, 
being perceived through the things that are 
made, even his everlasting power and divin- 
ity.’’' That primary revelation, as we have 
observed in the first lecture, is not without 
limitations. To the seeing eye nature mani- 
fests divine attributes, but not God in Him- 
self. Through nature may be perceived ‘“‘ his 
power and divinity.’’ Not thus, however, 
may be known anything of the fulness of 
the Godhead, by which we mean not mere 
divinity, but Deity, the essential being of 
God.’ For this latter knowledge the revela- 
tion in nature is utterly inadequate. There 
is required a revelation which is supernatural, 
which is made through methods of disclosure 
transcending nature. The natural revelation 
may yield the knowledge of attributes which 

“Rom, 1. 20. [Ry V.] 

* Compare the Greek word used in Rom. i. 20, bevdr ns, from 
Gelos, divine, with that used in Col. ii. Q, Gedrys, from Oeds, 
God. See Lightfoot on Col. ii. 9; also Trench, Wew Tvsta- 


ment Synonyms, pp. 6-9, and Hastings’s Dictionary of the 
Bible, Art. Godhead. 


186 THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 


are more physical and external, omnipres- 
ence and omnipotence. But the inner char- 
acter and essential nature and personality of 
God can be disclosed only through a revela- 
tion which is ethical, spiritual, and personal. 

In the unfolding of an increasing purpose to 
be traced through the ages, an ethical revela- 
tion is begun and carried far forward in the 
history and literature of the Hebrew people. 
Through their prophets came to the world the 
idea of a living God of righteousness. This 
God, ‘“‘ having of old time spoken unto the 
fathers in the prophets by divers portions and 
in-divers manners, hath at the end of these 
days spoken unto us in a Son.’”’! 

That long historic manifestation has culmi- 
nated in a disclosure of the Deity which inakes 
known the essential nature, the eternal char- 
acteristics, the inner life of the Godhead, so 
far as such knowledge can be disclosed to 
men. In order to be a revelation intelligible 
to man, it must come through man, in a hu- 
man history and experience. On the other 
hand, in order to convey infallible knowledge, 
it must be through one who himself intimately 

t -Hebvisi, =[R.-V.-marein: | 


THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 187 


knows God. In Him who is both Son of man 
and Son of God these conditions are fulfilled. 
Mysteriously commensurate with the twofold 
sonship was His personal consciousness. He 
knew man by a genuine human experience. 
He knew God through some experience of 
intimacy, which transcended possibility for 
men and qualified Him to represent God to 
them. ; 

In actual fact, Jesus Christ was to men the 
representative of God. They saw He was 
man, but they felt He was more. As He 
moved through their midst, they recognised 
among them something unearthly and divine. 
As they companied with Him, they were sen- 
sible of a spell that blessed and hallowed. In 
His presence God was come nigh. As they 
gazed on the works He wrought, and hung 
upon the accents of His voice, conviction pos- 
sessed them that His thoughts were as God’s 
thoughts and His ways as God’s ways. All 
He told them confirmed them in the persua- 
sion that in what He did and was they might 
know what God is. 

Related to man and to God, Jesus Christ is, 
moreover, the true representative and revealer 


188 THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 


of God. The key-note of the sublime theme 
is the filial. The Son reveals the Father. 
Here is the central core, herein the inexpressi- 
ble preciousness, of His revelation. The mys- 
tery underlying and brooding over the world 
is unveiled and shown to be Fatherhood. 
What more thrilling disclosure could there be 
than of the Power of the universe in this ten- 
der relationship! The Sovereign of all men ts 
their Father. The kingdom of heaven is the 
kingdom, not of an arbitrary despot, but of 


66 aed 


your heavenly Father. 
Such a thought of God had been foreshad- 
owed in Hebrew literature. To Yahweh, Is- 
rael was a first-born son. That had been, 
however, a fatherhood to the nation. In the 
few instances where the idea was individual- 
ised, still it was only of an elect monarch or 
one of the elect people. It had been not a 
revelation of divine character but a description 
of covenant relationship. In this new light, 
that legal relation gives way to the personal, 
and the personal is restricted by no bounds of 
nation or race. The horizon is ever receding. 
The Fatherhood is universal. No less a person 
could thus have interpreted the spiritual prin- 


THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 189 


ciple of the universe. The revelation of God’s 
nature as Father could come only when, at 
last, God spake in His Son. The only begot- 
ten Son declared Him and manifested His 
name, the name of Father as denoting His 
very character. He gave to men the enno- 
bling conviction that they might be the chil- 
dren of God.and the inspiring incentive to 
be perfect, as their heavenly Father is per- 
fect. It was a lesson, at once in the great- 
ness of prayer and the possible dignity of 
all men, when He taught them to say, “* our 
mothers 

For this was something more than the Pa- 
ternity of creation.. Of lower creatures He 
said, “‘ your heavenly Father feedeth them.”’ 
Whis\was'*ajFatherhood’ of men. Jt was a 
view of God, not only as their Maker, but as 
sustaining some nearer and more personal re- 
lation. By virtue of some central fact that 
was a bond between God and man, the divine 
Fatherhood was revealed in intimate connec- 
tion with human life. 

Thus the revelation of the Father, through 
this man among men, was not something ab- 
stract, remote, and academic. It was con- 


190 THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 


crete, practical, and vital, coming close to 
men, something that was, at first, visible and 
tangible in its manifestation to them. One of 
them wrote of it: ‘‘ That which we have 
heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, 
that which we beheld, and our hands handled, 
concerning the word of life.’’ And the issue 


“é 


he declares, ‘‘ our fellowship is with the Fa- 
ther.’’! The revelation was very personal. 
Another to whom it came spoke of it as a 
shining ‘‘ in our hearts, to give the light of the 
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of 
Jesus iGhrists 2: 

It was the sunshine of a divine love that 
illumined and warmed men’s hearts from that 
radiant countenance beaming divinity. In 
Him was beheld that energy of desire on be- 
half of human beings which is personal love. 
As He turned upon one and another the light 
of His countenance, each was bathed in His 
clorifying sunshine. He 


“Conceived of love as what must enter in, 
Fill up, make one with His each soul He loved.” 


And He loved each soul. In His words and 


at Sts yohn 4, 193; 42 Coret¥.. 0: 


oe iia 


THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED igi 


in His deeds there was revealed God's Fatherly 
love, a love that cares in particular, number- 
ing the very hairs of one’s head. Of this 
men were persuaded beyond a doubt as they 
beheld Him taking little children into His 
arms to bless them and healing men’s bodily 
and spiritual ills; as they saw that He was 
touched with the feeling of their infirmities, 
and Himself took their infirmities and bare 
their diseases, feeling their suffering and sor- 
row as His own. 

The tragic sequel of the great story we can 
at this point only touch upon. It is enough 
to say that still men might behold the light of 
the knowledge of the glory of God in the face 
of Jesus Christ. When His sweat was, as it 
were, great drops of blood falling to the 
ground, when His brow was pierced with the 
crown of thorns, in that visage so marred more 
than any man, there was the more moving 
manifestation of something that was divine. 
However dimly recognised at the moment, 
later the disciples felt those hours of the Pas- 
sion to have been indeed a revelation of the 
glory of God, in love, in long-suffering pa- 
tience, in sacrifice. 


192 THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 


Of this revelation in person, the signal cul- 
mination was the rising from the dead. It fol- 
lowed fitly upon that scene, when the fashion 
of His countenance was altered and His face 
did shine as the sun and His raiment was 
white and glistering, upon the Mount of Trans- 
figuration. Although heralded in this vision, 
which was not to be told until the Son of man 
was risen from the dead, and although then 
and at other times explicitly foretold, the Res- 
urrection, when it occurred, was a tremendous 
surprise even to His closest followers. But 
while it astounded it convinced that little 
company. The slowest of them to believe it 
at length received its mighty witness with 
the adoring exclamation: ‘‘ My Lord and my 
God.’’ It is evidence of the superhuman char- 
acter of the impression left by this risen and 
ascended Lord, that, within the period of a 
single lifetime, His nearest friends are obliged 
emphatically and jealously to insist that Jesus 
Christ is come in the flesh. 

Let it be observed that this revelation in 
Christ involves more than might be implied in 
the use of that word “‘impression.’’ Nor is it 
enough to say that He ‘‘ makes us certain of 


THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 193 


a living God.’’! I cannot undertake to enter 
into a criticism of the brilliant Ritschlian 
school of theology. In certain of its posi- 
tions, notably its recognition of the historical 
Christ and its emphasis upon the revelation 
through Him, it has doubtless done service to 
truth. In its endeavour, however, to divorce 
religious knowledge from metaphysics, it makes 
religious knowledge to consist in, or at any 
rate to be based on, “‘ value-judgments.’’ Re- 
ligious truth is that which has worth for the 
life of the Spirit. The question is limited to 
its subjective value, and is not concerned with 
its objective validity. Christ has for us the 
religious value of God and, therefore, is God 
tous. It is He‘ in whom the Word of God is 
humamiperson:’* Herrmann asserts, .°" It/is 
self-evident that the Deity of Christ can only 
be expressed by saying that the mind and will 
of the Everlasting God stand before us in the 
historically active will of this man.’’® Kaftan 
says, ‘“ He is the man in whom God caused 
the fulness of His eternal being to dwell, so 


1 Herrmann, Der Verkehr des Christen mit Gott. Eng. 
transl. of 2d ed., p. 52. 
sEinitcChLee cee ADp:, NOtenkO: FO Pci lee ael 30; 


13 


194 THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 


that He is for us the image of the invisible 
Guna 

Against this general view, the Christian con- 
sciousness echoes that saying, “‘ Thy word is 
truth,’’ not merely has the subjective value of 
truth. Statements such as those just referred 
to fail to do justice to the records we have. Far 
beyond this went the conceptions entertained 
in that first age regarding the Revealer’s rela- 
tions to the Deity. The strongest language 
is used. ‘‘ God only begotten, which is in the 
bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.’’ ? 


III. Not all at once did those first recipients 
of the revelation in Christ find out everything 
about Him. But they knew they had found 
the living God, because in Christ He had found 
them. He had come near to bless them and 
to reveal Himself personally to them. There 
can be no question as to the general light 
wherein they regarded Jesus Christ. There 
can be no manner of doubt that the highest 
conceptions of Him were held and expressed 
by. the Apostolic men whose writings we have. 

1 Das Wesen der Christ. Religion, p. 314. 
* St. John i. 18. [R. V. margin.] See App., note 20. 


THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 195 


One, upon whom the true light had flashed in 
a brightness above the noon-day, exalted His 
Person to a pre-eminence above all. He is 
God’s own Son, the Son of His love. All 
things are through the Son. Through Him 
and unto Him all things have been created, 
and in Him all things consist. He is the 
image of the invisible God. Before He was 
found in fashion as a man, He was in the form 
of God. In Him dwelleth all the fulness of 
the Godhead bodily. 

Another, who claims to have been admitted 
to most intimate fellowship, even lying on His 
breast, wrote, long afterward, his Gospel. 
The Prologue is a sublime discourse concern- 
ing the Word, the thought or speech, the 
medium of revelation. That Word, who in 
the beginning was with God and was God, 
became flesh and tabernacled among us (and 
we beheld his glory, glory as of the only be- 
gotten from the Father).’’! 

At last we have come to the centre of the 
revelation. It is the Incarnation of the re- 
vealing Word. Now we may understand the 
reason of the great language: that men should 


COA DD NOte. ol, 


196 THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 
FAS oN ge de hee 0 EOS Se See ee eee 
honour the Son even as they honour the Fa- 
ther, and believe in the Son as in the Father. 
Through the Son incarnate men come to be- 
lieve in the Father. In virtue of the Incarna- 
tion, there is in a human life a revelation of the 
Father. ‘‘ He that hath seen me hath seen 
the Father.’’ Moreover, men have here a 
revelation of divine Fatherhood as a funda- 
mental and eternal fact. Christ reveals God 
as ‘‘my Father and your Father,’’ your Fa- 
ther because, first, my Father before the foun- 
dation of the world. 

There is here an unveiling of divine person- 
ality, which is shown in its freedom and ful- 
ness. The true light, in this effulgence of 
manifestation, reveals in God the glory of per- 
sonality in its eternal self-consciousness, self- 
communion, and self-activity, that self-lumin- 
ous glory whereof Dante sang: 


“© luce eterna, che sola in te sidi, 
Sola tintendi, e da te intelletta 
E intendente, te ami ed arridi!’’? 


1O Light Eternal, that sole dwellest in Thyself, sole under- 
standest Thyself, and, by Thyself understood and understand- 
ing, lovest and smilest on Thyself ! 


Paradiso, Xxxili. 124. 


THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 197 


In this revealing light, conceptions of the 
Deity are at once heightened and enriched. 
It is seen that the divine glory is something 
more than the physical splendour of greatness 
and power, or even the metaphysical loftiness 
of an immutable source and first cause of all. 
It is the moral and spiritual glory of a Being 
who is infinitely above the world, but who is 
not less the eternal birthplace, the home and 
living source, of those ethical and spiritual 
affections, energies, and activities, that bless 
and ennoble the world. There is a revelation 
of ethical and of social life in the Godhead. 
There is revealed personal life in eternal rela- 
tionships. God never became Father. From 
all eternity He was Father, because with Him 
was the eternal Son, the first-born of all, that 
is, before all creation, the only begotten Son 
OteGod, begotten of .His Father) before: all 
worlds. Fatherhood is eternal and essential 
to God. No less is Sonship eternal’and essen- 
tial to God. There is revelation of the eternal 
Father in the eternal Son, who does not merely 
teach about the Father, but shows to men the 
Father. 

In this revelation by the Son, of Fatherhood 


198 THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 


as eternally belonging to God’s essential na- 
ture, we further learn that God was never 
merely potential love, waiting in lonely soli- 
tude until there should be a human being 
or an angel to be loved. Before there was 
a creation or a creature, He actually loved. 
Within the Godhead there has ever been the 
love of Father and Son, reciprocally given and 
received: “‘ For thou lovedst me before the 
foundation of the world.’’ Eternally and 
essentially, God is love. 

Christ’s consciousness was largely occupied 
with the Holy Spirit (without whom, indeed, 
He were not the Christ), the Spirit of truth, 
who proceedeth from the Father, and whom 
the Son sends from the Father. It is, indeed, 
a distinguishing characteristic of Christianity 
that this Holy Spirit was inbreathed and, at 
Pentecost, in baptism of fire, poured out upon 
men. They who had seen God manifest in 
the flesh now knew God manifest in the Spirit. 
Unmistakable is the Apostolic witness to the 
office and place of the Holy Spirit, as great, as 
necessary, as divine, as of the Father or the 
Son. In accordance with the Revealer’s teach- 
ing, the early Christians were baptised into the 


ee 


Se ee ee eee ee 


———_ -— — eee ee eee ee ee oS ee ee 


toe KEV eUALTION CONSUMMATED (j 99 


threefold name. The Christian life was be- 
gun, continued, empowered and blessed in 
Picename. of the Pather, and-of the, cons and 
of the Holy Ghost. 

The Christians that came after were slow to 
receive all the meaning of this revelation of 
the Spirit. It took the Church long centuries 
fiuwatoslearn tit.s Indeed; the (Ghurcheis;still 
entering into the profound truth regarding the 
office and work of the Holy Ghost, ‘‘ The 
Lord, and Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from 
the Father and the Son, Who with the Father 
and the Son together is worshipped and glori- 
fied, Who spake by the Prophets.’’ 

It has been found vain to attempt to lessen 
the transcendent mystery of the revelation by 
making Father, Son, and Holy Ghost only ~ 
names denoting modes of the divine action, or 
successive manifestations of God, or aspects 
wherein He may be viewed. Not with that 
superficial and merely external significance 
are these names revealed, but rather as ex- 
pressing distinctions which are. immanent 
within the Godhead and which are eternal and 
personal. The word ‘** person’’ is employed 
because there has not been found a better 


200 THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 


term. It is a word thrown out at ineffable 
realities which words cannot adequately ex- 
press. It is, however, as we have already 
seen, not a belittling word. Personality 
stands for the highest we may know in exist- 
ence. It must be remembered, the word “‘ per- 
son’’ is not equivalent to “‘ individual.’’ To 
speak of persons within the Godhead does not 
imply separate individualities, like St. Peter 
and-St. Paul. ,fhe divine’ Persons “aremean 
is ‘true, distinct; so. much':so that injeuie 
Revealer’s language different personal pro- 
nouns are applied to each. They are, never- 
theless, although distinct, not separate, but 
one. 

The revelation is consistent and intelligible 
only as we see there the eternal Persons, the 
Father, the Sonjand the Holy” Ghostumas 
equally, because infinitely, above us, in the 
one Godhead. For, in confessing the Trinity, 
the Church has always held and worshipped 
the Unity. The fundamental fact of the reve- 
lation is the truth of One God. It is, how- 
ever, a unity not of mere empty simplicity, 
but rather of complexity and manifoldness. 
There is a revelation of God in an infinite ful- 


a ee 


a 


THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 201 


ness of personality, and thus of a oneness 
which is more significant than numerical sin- 
gleness or mere isolation, and richer than 
lonely solitude, because the living unity of the 
eternal communion, the profoundly related 
fellowship, the mutual knowledge, love, and 
life, of the Father and the Son in the unity of 
the Spirit of life and love. 


Here mysteries are, so far as may be, re- 
vealed. It is no longer the Unknown God. 
Out of the infinite distance, forth from the 
clouds and thick darkness, He has come near 
and revealed Himself as intelligible, as accessi- 
ble, as with men and for men, in yearning 
love. Had there been no Incarnation, and 
were Christ mere man, there would have been 
in Him the manifestation only of a finite ideal. 
We want more than that. We want some 
manifestation of the infinite; and we have 
it. We have a manifestation of the infinite 
in the finite, the divine Word that reveals, 
made flesh, and so translated into terms of 
human life as to be level with our sympathies 
and with the apprehension of our faith and 
love. 


202. . THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 


IV. This translation into human terms of 
revelation implied of necessity an entering into 
relations and limitations. All revelation in- 
volves, on God’s part, limitation. The mani- 
festation in the natural creation involved the 
limitations of space and time. When the cre- 
ation reached its climax in man, omnipotence 
submitted to further limitation, as divine mag- 
nanimity endowed a creature with the power 
to assert his will in opposition to the divine 
will. And when the self-expression of God 
has its consummation in this act of becoming 
man, so that very God may be manifested in 
a true human experience, then indeed there is 
self-limitation to a degree which language may 
not express. In becoming man, the Son of 
God, as St. Paul says, ‘“ became poor,’? liter- 
ally, made Himself a beggar,’ or, as he says 
again, ‘‘ emptied Himself, taking the form of 
a servant, being made in the likeness of 
Mich .wne 

This self-impoverishment, this self-empty- 
ing, must mean something. What does it 
mean? The determination of this question 
is a matter fraught with grave difficulties on 

+) Gor vul,20, ‘Philyait. Fe oe ed 


ee ee ee ee ee 


THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 203 


either hand.! It is well to remember that this 
is a profound mystery, where reverence befit- 
teth, and where there is possibility of much 
darkening by words without knowledge. On 
the other hand, the mystery of the Incarnation 
must have involved sacrifice. That sacrifice 
Scripture describes as an emptying; and the 
disciple may rightly attempt reverently to in- 
terpret this language of Holy Scripture. 

Of that divinity which was essential to His 
person, the Son of God could not divest Him- 
self. Having, as His own rightful prerogative, 
equality with God, nevertheless He ‘‘ came 
down,’’ in some sense, to the lower level of 
iaeands tosuse thesphrase ofp ot e@yriliot 
Alexandria, 
manity to prevail in His own case.’’? Being 


66 


suffered the measures of the hu- 


in the form of God, He would seem to have 
relinquished, for a period, certain prerogatives 
of that divine form of existence, in taking the 
form of a servant, becoming in the likeness of 
men. He submitted to be manifested within 
the limits of finite human nature. 


OEE LADD, Note 22. 
2 Quod unus sit Christus, Opera, tom, viii (Migne), p. 1332. 
See App., note 23. 


204 THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 


Attributes characterised by quantitative in- 
finitude, such as, for example, omnipotence, 
belong to the mode of God’s being as infinite, 
as unlimited. But here the fulness of God- 


head is, through some wonderful condescen- | 


sion, within limits. The Son of God appears 
without the glory which He had with the Fa- 
ther before the world was. He would seem to 
have emptied Himself of a certain glory per- 
taining to the divine mode of existence, so far 
as willingly to undergo some limitations in the 
exercise, within the sphere of the Incarnation, 
of the more external and quantitative attri- 
butes of the Deity, omnipotence and omnipres- 
ence, and also, we must add, even of omni- 


’ 


science, for He ‘‘ increased in wisdom,’’ and, 
of one particular, as He declares, not even the 
Son knoweth. Those divine attributes are, 
to some degree and for a time, within the 
sphere-of His life>on earth, in abeyancesamas 
certain glory, under other circumstances be- 
fitting such a being, is mainly hidden and seen 
only now and again in flashes through the veil, 
that is to say, His flesh. But it is in order to 
reveal to men certain other things that are 
still higher, that are more internal and essen- 


THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 205 


tial to the very character of God; namely, the 
divine goodness and holiness, love and sym- 
pathy and sacrifice. 

In all this there is nothing derogatory to 
God. In the first place it was, from the be- 
sinning of the creation, voluntary. It was 
self-limitation, out of the free activity of be- 
neficent purpose. Furthermore, in the Incar- 
- nation, the more stupendous the renunciation, 
the more divine it is seen to be. It isa self- 
emptying of that which may be described as 
relatively lower, that there may be the fuller 
revelation of that which is highest and best in 
God. It is the renunciation of a glory which 
was more external and accessory, in order to 
the manifestation of a glory which is moral 
and spiritual; the glory of divine love, express- 
ing itself in compassion, in renunciation and 
suffering and self-sacrifice; a love that is ineffa- 
ble, that passeth knowledge. It is, I repeat, 
a mystery. Yet we may begin to see, though 
it be as through a glass dimly, that this self- 
limitation and emptying, in the Incarnation, 
and this submission to the weakness and sor- 
row and pain and manifold humiliation of hu- 
manity, do reveal, as no otherwise could be 


206 THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 


revealed, the essential character of God. We 
begin to realise, as poor Pompilia says, how 
God was 


«, , « likest God in being born.” 


V. It must not be ignored that the Incarna- 
tion has a cosmic significance. The Word 
which became flesh was from the beginning of 
the world the agent of creation. ‘“‘ All things 


were made by him; and without him was not 


anything made.’’4 ~°‘ All things. have (been 
created through him and unto him; and he is 
before all things, and in him all things con- 
sist.”’? The age-long creative process, ad- 
vancing through successive stages of prepara- 
tion and of ascending life, finally produces 
man, creation’s climax, a creature in the im- 
age of the Creator, the worthy end of the crea- 
tive purpose, wherein all typical forms find 
their fulfilment, and the ascending scale of life 
its summit. And now at length appears The 
Man, the ideal and perfect man, archetype of 
all, to give unity and meaning to the whole 
vast work, to round creation to completeness 
and crown it with glory and honour. Here is 


Ste [ohn i 3. * COW sop 


— — ee —— 


THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 207 


not the evolved, but the Evolver, at last mak- 
ing Himself personally manifest. He was in 
all the evolution, from beginning to end, in 
progressive manifestation; and, at last, in per- 
fect man dwells the fulness of Godhead bodily. 
The gospel of creation is consummated. Cre- 
atomand creature are one, ~The circle of being 
is complete.! 


Whether the Incarnation would have been, 
had man not fallen, is, of course, a purely spec- 
ulative question. It may serve, however, to 
bring into view the fundamental importance 
of the Incarnation. It is certain that all the 
suffering and shame that followed upon the 
Incarnation must be ascribed to the Fall. It 
is also evident that in the Incarnation there 
was not only consummation, but also restora- 
tion of what had been ruined by sin.* On the 
other hand, the primary significance of the In- 
carnation is revelation. The revealing Word 
became flesh. This union of the divine and 
the human natures in one Person would seem 
to be more than a remedial device even to 


+See App., note 24. 
* Cf. Gore, Bampton Lectures, pp. 40, et seg. 


208 THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 


meet the dire emergency of sin. It is the 
crowning culmination of the long process of 
God’s manifestation of Himself. As such, it 
is no after-thought. The revelation looking to 
this end is a purpose from all eternity, which 
would have been fulfilled had the records of 
time never been. stained by sin. It manifests 
not only that God is love but also that God is 
light. Irrespective of the reeking corruption 
here below, in any case, the light from heaven 
would have visited the world. In any case, 
it was inevitably and essentially involved that 
humanity, noblest product of creation, should 
be the vehicle of the supreme manifestation, 
that therein should be set a tabernacle for the 
sun which cometh out of the secret chambers 
of eternity, that True Light of the world) 
whose goings forth are from everlasting. 


VI. The manifesting light in Jesus Christ is 
self-luminous. The revelation is self-evident. 
It has need of no other evidence than its own 
truth. That this is so was ignored a century 
ago. It is not very long since the champions 
of Christianity were resting its claims upon ex- 
ternal evidences and credentials presented to 


THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 209 


the reason for verdict and judgment, before 
the acceptance of the revelation. Miracles 
were appealed to as such external proof of the 
revelation, as the seals affixed in attestation of 
its authority and credibility. 

In these days men are more and more con- 
vinced that the miracles of the Gospel are not 
external evidences of the revelation, but that 
they are evidences because included within its 
compass, as parts thereof. Such a revelation 
might be expected to be marvellous in men’s 
eyes. It was inevitable that the Virgin-born 
should work mighty works which surpassed 
human experience of natural laws and proc- 
esses, that the presence of the creative Word 
incarnate should be attended by manifesta- 
tions transcending the ordinary course of na- 
ture. These manifestations, however, were 
not mere wonders to arouse attention and 
compel conviction. The prevailing name ap- 
plied to them is signs. They are signs, strik- 
ingly significant, impressive with meaning. 
The miracles of Christ are parables in action. 
They are like graphic pictorial illustrations, 
incorporated into His revelation in order viv- 
idly to convey its meaning. They are inherent 


14 


210 THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 
elements of His teaching. They do not, for 
this age, prove the revelation, but rather the 
revelation, as a whole, proves these which are 
among its constituent parts. 

The revelation does not depend upon any- 
thing external to it. It was a misconception 
to suppose that there was need of other light 
upon the revelation than the light that shines 
in it. It was like depending on a pound of 
candles to throw light upon the sun and show 
that it is the sun. But there is needed no 
candle, for the glory of God is the light thereof. 
As in the light of day the sun is self-luminous 
and manifests itself by shining, so this revela- 
tion manifests itself. It is light. It needs no 
illumination upon it to make it manifest. It 
shines by its own luminousness. It carries its 
evidence in its own light and glory. It does 
not depend upon external evidences. Its illu- 
mination is an internal manifestation. It 
shines in our hearts. The best evidences are 
such as convince within, internal evidences. 

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is seen to be 
true because it manifests truth. It is seen to 
be a revelation because it reveals. It is a reve- 
lation from God, because it is a revelation of 


THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 211 


Him, because it makes men know the living 
God. ‘‘ And we know that the Son of God 
is come and hath given us an understanding, 
that we know him that is true.”’ 

As the revelation transcends proof, so also 
it transcends explanation. We have seen how 
the element of the miraculous enters into the 
historical revelation; we now go farther and 
say that the mysterious is of its very essence. 
Its central fact, the Incarnation, is not to be 
explained. It is the mystery of the Incarna- 
tion. It is a mystery, however, that reveals 
other mysteries. How mysterious is light 
itself! How little we really know about it! 
Its origin, its mode of issuing, its velocity, its 
almost inconceivable journey hither, the mar- 
vellous material of that semi-spiritual luminif- 
erous ether, the incomparable rapidity of the 
undulations throughout its vast extent, the 
propagation of those waves of light, the com- 
plete explanation of that vibrating splendour 
in the sun—these are problems for us. Yet it 
is this mysterious light that makes everything 
else visible to our eyes. 

It is likewise with the mystery of the Incar- 


212 THE REVELATION CONSUMMATED 


nation. So the light that shines in the face 
of Jesus Christ is the light of life for men. 
Christ comes between men and God, but it is 
as light is between them and the sun. Like 
the light of day ever streaming from the sun, 
so is that True Light. Issuing eternally from 
the divine essence, Light out of Light, com- 
ing forth from that ineffable Light that no 
man may approach unto, coming into the 
world more and more, at last, shining no 
longer in broken and scattered rays of twilight 
but in full-orbed splendour, it transfigures 
human life with the effulgence of God's glory 
and with the renewing energy of a life which 
is divine. 


vit 


The Revelation Continued: 
Christ in Men 


‘“ So tho’ our Daystar from our sight be taken, 
gone from his brethren, hidden from his own, 
yet in his setting are we not forsaken, 
suffer not shadows of the dark alone. 


‘“ Not in the west is Thine appearance ended, 
neither from night shall Thy renewal be, 
lo, for the firmament in spaces splendid 
lighteth her beacon-fires ablaze for Thee : 


‘ Look what a company of constellations ! 
Say can the sky so many lights contain ? 
Hath the great earth these endless generations ? 
Are there so many purified thro’ pain ?” 
—F. W. H. Myers, Saint,Paul. 


HAE REV ECATION CONTINUED: 
CHRIST IN MEN 


IN His influence upon the world, Jesus Christ 
is greater than the greatest of those who have 
beer the founders of religions. Why is this ? 
It is because that which He gives the world 
is‘more than a religion. It is the revelation 
wherein all religions find their fulfilment. In 
Wesucs@nrist there disnasperiect revelation: /1¢ 
is perfect in the sense that no revelation bet- 
ter, or through a more adequate medium, can 
be conceived. In Him we find fulfilled the 
conditions of a revelation which shall convey 
intelligibly the knowledge of reality. It is a 
revelation not touching either God or man 
merely on the outside. It is a revelation, in 
man, of One Who is in the Father and the 
Father in Him. Coming thus through inti- 
mate experience of both God and man, it is 
revelation itself. 

That union in Jesus Christ of divine and 


216 THE REVELATION CONTINUED 


human, which neither confounds the natures 
nor divides the person, is a union inseparable. 
The revelation thereby made is not only per- 
fect, it is permanent. The process of mani- 
festation has not to be begun again. Sucha 
history was not in vain. The revelation was 
once for all. - It has never been improved 
upon; it could not be superseded. Convey- 
ing truth that is ultimate, the revelation is 
final. The Incarnation is the culmination of 
that illuminating influence in human history 
which we call inspiration. God had breathed 
into men. At best, however, this had been 
the influence upon one of Another person. It 
all had pointed on to a consummation when 
divine and human should be united in one and 


the same person. 


I. In Jesus Christ culminated the religious 
history of mankind, and, as religion is the chief 
factor in man’s life, His is the consummate 
figure of all history. The Son of man, to use 
the phrase of St. Irenaeus, “‘ recapitulated in 
himself the long unfolding of mankind.’’* In 
Him was realised the perfect type. It is 


1 Contra Haereses, iii. 18, I. 


ee tt 


So ee am a 


——— 


= Se eS 


ee a 


Pie REVELATION: CONTINUED 217 


sometimes objected that, at that comparatively 
early period, there would not have been a type 
more perfect than later and more highly spe- 
cialised developments of the race. It is a case 
wherein a theory is confronted by the fact. 
Jesus Christ is, and is generally confessed to 
be, as regards character and spiritual power, 
the greatest personage in history. The ob- 
jection, however, is on the way toward the 
recognition of a truth. The Incarnation was 
not only the consummation of all that went 
before: it was also the inauguration of an 
era. The Son of God initiated a new type of 
humanity, to be realised in increasing fulness 
as men entered into the meaning of the great 
revelation. 

It was only gradually that men entered into 
that meaning. Even in the New Testament 
there may be discerned a progress in disclos- 
ure. There are foretold more glorious mani- 
festations. There is explicit promise of fuller 
teaching after Christ’s ascension. Accord- 
ingly, there were to be expected new and 
fuller interpretations of the revelation. Never- 
theless, the revelation in Christ is the norm, the 
standard and test of all later interpretations 


218 THE REVELATION CONTINUED 


and amplifications of its truth. We have now 
to observe that the revelation, although per- 
fect, permanent, and final, or rather because 
perfect, permanent, and final, is continued. 

As it is recorded in the Scriptures, it is a 
revelation, not only of God’s character, but also 
of gracious purpose to be achieved. The rev- 
elation is more than educative, it is also re- 
demptive. It aims at a great result in man- 
A revelation of divine love must, in view of 
the fact of the world’s misery and sin, include 
such gracious purpose. In Christ, as we have 
noted, men saw a divine love. A revelation 
of love involves, as its supreme expression, 
sacrifice. In the Incarnation there was sacri- 
fice, as we have seen, the #enoszs, the empty- 
ing, which was involved in the fact that the 
Son of God was made in the likeness of men. 
That emptying had issue in further sacrifice, 
He thus found in fashion as a man, becoming 
obedient even as far as death, and that the 
death of the Cross. 


II. Our present purpose is not to state, much 
less to explain, the doctrine of the Atonement. 
Says Bishop Butler, in reference to the efficacy 


ee =a 


THE REVELATION CONTINUED 219 


Olmtuewsactince on the: Cross: “How. and) in 
what particular way it had this efficacy, there 
are not wanting persons who have endeavoured 
to explain; but I do not find that the Scrip- 
ture has explained it.’’! We are approaching 
the Atonement on the side of revelation, and, 
viewing it from that standpoint, we are con- 
sidering what, as a manifestation of God, it 
reveals. 

The doctrine of redemption is stated with 
great simplicity in the ancient Catholic Creed: 
‘“ Who for us men and for our salvation came 
down from heaven, and was incarnate by the 
Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made 
man: And was crucified also for us under Pon- 
tius Pilate; He suffered and was buried.’’ 
The Atonement follows upon the Incarnation. 
The sacrifice of Christ’s death was the sequel 
of His sacrifice in becoming man. The great 
At-one-ment was already involved in the fact 
that, in the Incarnation, God and man are 
one. Emmanuel, God with us, was with us 
for weal and woe, was so truly made in the 
likeness of men that He did not escape, but 
willingly took up, the burdens of humanity 

1 The Analogy, Part II., chap. v. 


220 THE REVELATION CONTINUED 


and bore them as Son of man. The Son of 
man must needs suffer.’ 

It was suffering not as a substitute instead 
of men. He was too closely identified with 
men to be substituted as another in their 
stead; but He might represent them. As 
their representative, He suffered on their 
behalf. The Passion was vicarious. It was 
the supreme instance of suffering borne for 
others, of the self-sacrifice that ennobles so 
much of life, whether it be the sacrifice of 
the mother for her child or of the soldier for 
his country. The Cross illustrates and glori- 
fies how much toil and sweat, and patience 
and pain, blood of brave battle and fires of 
martyrdom! 

Furthermore, through all the piteous: story 
there shows itself that baseness in the blood 
and perversion of the will and derangement of 
men’s whole nature, which is named _ sin. 
This, that plays so large a part in all the 
drama of life, wrought here the world’s great 
tragedy. Cause of all trouble in the world, it 
caused this suffering, and involved the Sinless 
One in the misery of its havoc. He suffered 

+ St. Mark ‘vili. 32: 


THE REVELATION. CONTINUED 227 


for sins. He who knew no sin“ bare the sin 
of many,’’ as only one so holy might bear such 
a burden. It not seldom happens that the 
mystery of iniquity casts its shadow on the 
innocent and pure until they feel the shame 
and suffering more keenly than the guilty 
themselves. What suffering for sin meant to 
Jesus Christ was a mysterious experience into 
‘ which, while we may not think of entering, 
we may have glimpses from afar, at certain 
stages of the Passion: as when in Gethsemane 
He sank prostrate beneath some overwhelming 
weight of woe and shrank in agony from the 
appalling bitterness of the cup given Him to 
drink; or in that hour of desolation on the 
Cross, when a horror of great darkness fell 
upon Him, as a thick cloud rolled over Him 
some awful obscuration and hid His Father’s 
face. So closely was He identified with sinful 
man. 

Whatever of expiation the world’s sin had 
necessitated (and deep in the nature of things 
seems to be grounded some such necessity), in 
Him there was fulfilment, there was perfect 
satisfaction. Let it be remembered that, as 
Bishop Westcott says, ‘‘the ‘ propitiation ’ 


Dae THE REVELATION CONTINUED 


acts on that which alienates God and not on 
God whose love is unchanged throughout.” ! 
Let it be remembered ‘‘ that he loved us, and 
sent his Son to be the propitiation for our 
sins.’’® Let there be recognition of the vol- 
untary sacrifice, whereof the death was the 
culmination, and whereof St. Bernard said, in 
language often quoted, “‘ Not His death but 
His willing acceptance of death was pleasing 
to God.’’* There is the uniquely momentous 
fact that in a human life was fulfilled perfect 
obedience, even as far as death, a perfect obe- 
dience that completely met and fully satisfied 
the utmost demand of the very highest, the 
divine, ideal. Thus their great High Priest 
offered for men the sacrifice they could not 
offer for themselves. He ‘‘is able to save to 
the uttermost them that draw near unto God 
through him, seeing he ever liveth to make in- 
tercession for them.’’* His is a victory won 
forever over the world’s sin, viewed in its 


1 The Epistle to the Hebrews, Pp. 57s 

“31 oti.) OHU.Av.110,. Clason uit 2s: 

***Non mors, sed voluntas placuit sponte morientis.”— 
Tract, De Erroribus Petri Abaélardi, viii. 21. 

* Heb. vii. 25. 


THE REVELATION CONTINUED 223 


unity as a common inheritance of men in their 
solidarity. ‘‘ Behold, the Lamb of God, which 
taketh away the sin of the world!’’! 

There is in the Cross a revelation of sin and 
of the attitude of God toward that black fact 
in life. God is revealed as by no means indif- 
ferent to sin. God is love, but that must imply 
a consuming wrath against ‘‘ wickedness that 


23 


hinders loving.’’ It is a revelation that also 
lays bare sin in its outcome and meaning 
against God. God was manifest in the flesh, 
and sin murdered Him. 

There is a further revelation. Not only did 
the Son of man represent mankind. More- 
over, the Son of God suffered as the represen- 
tative of the Father. 

Viewed in the light of the Incarnation, there 
is in the Cross a revelation that God is not in- 
capable of feeling with and for His creatures. 
Like as a father pitieth his own children, so 
there is in God a fatherly love that can feel 
what His children feel, indeed suffer what they 
suffer. There is the revelation of a love that 
is truly sympathy, in the literal meaning of 
sympathy, suffering with men, having com- 

1St. John i. 29. 


224. THE REVELATION CONTINUED 


passion and drawing nigh to help, coming close 
at hand even to cope with the darkest and the 
worst in human existence and face its sin and 
woe and death; a revelation that His is a love 
that spared not His own Son, but freely deliv- 
ered Him up to suffer and to die. Thus we 


see in God more than any earthly father’s pity, 


even the infinite pity that alone is adequate 
to the pathetic and the tragic in human life. 
There is a revelation of divine power express- 
ing itself as mercy, 


‘And mercy carried infinite degrees 
Beyond the tenderness of human hearts.” 


There is a revelation of God going forth in 
person to meet wandering, sinning man; going 
as far as possible, to the utmost lengths and 
depths, as far as to suffering, shame, and death; 
and, in thus meeting man at the lowest depth, 
making at-one-ment wherein God and the sin- 
Nefrrarc atone, 

By virtue of Christ’s relations to humanity, 
His great sacrifice becomes something more 
than an objective fact altogether external to 
men. He suffered and died, not that they 
might escape suffering and death, but rather 


—— we ee ee ee ee a ae ee ee) A 2 


THE REVELATION CONTINUED 225 


as their head and leader, the Captain of their 
salvation, that they might follow where He 
led; Christ crucified for men that men might 
be crucified with Christ, and by some genuine 
union participate in the sacrifice. 

So men are baptised into His death. So, in 
the Holy Eucharist, they show forth His death, 
first offer the commanded memorial of the 
transcendent sacrifice, then offer themselves as 
a living sacrifice, and at length partake of His 
sacrifice, eating His flesh and drinking His 
blood that He may dwell in them and they in 
Him. Inthis great Sacrament the Atonement 
is personally realised. Men make His sacrifice 
theirs and their sacrifices one with His. Not 
only have they been long ago made at one 
with God but, in the true fellowship of Holy 
Communion, they are now at one with God in 
Christ. 

The Atonement is not to be passively re- 
ceived. God was in Christ reconciling the 
world unto Himself, and to men comes the 
Cals ebe ye reconciledsto God, 7“ Thesprings 
and energies of their life are laid hold of. This 
reconciliation involves redemption from sin. 
There is the redeeming motive, for Christ’s 

15 


220 THE REVELATION CONTINUED 


sake, mighty to win from wrong. There is 
redemptive power. It was a revelation, not 
only of mercy and forgiveness, but of succour 
and grace to help in time of need. It was the 
revelation of a God who in life’s battle stands 
behind one, close at hand with reinforcement 
for a man when hard pressed, to save him from 
defeat and turn disaster into victory. There 


is emancipating power to break the yoke of. 


sin and rescue the captive from its bondage. 
With that great price has been obtained this 
freedom. It is an emancipation which ushers 
into a;new ‘ltfe:® Life has, been wredeemecs 
There has been revelation of its possibilities as 
opportunity of sacrifice, its hard and heavy 
things transmuted by a touch of consecration 
to be an offering in the name of the Crucified. 

Thus the Atonement is not to be exter- 
nal to men. What was wrought for them 
must be wrought in them. ‘ The word of the 
cross |.) .teswsis’ the power of) Godse 
alone in pardon and privilege purchased for 
man, but in imperative claim upon man; the 
power of God, moreover, within man, the 
secret of patient, brave, and loyal living, as 


PICO ato. 


Le Roma 


oe  — 


THE REVELATION CONTINUED e277 


the cross is taken up daily by them who fol- 
low Christ in the fellowship of His sufferings. 
That word of the Cross is first a revelation to 
men and then a revelation in them. 


III. In Christ there is a revelation, not only 
of God, but also of man. There is a revelation 
of the original design of human nature in the 
typical and ideal man. The very possibility 
of the Incarnation reveals a certain dignity of 
human nature, as capable of that union with 
the divine. Man is made so much in God’s 
likeness that God may be made in the likeness 
of men. Then there is revealed the worth of 
humanity in the great price of redemption. 
It cost so much to redeem their souls. 

Furthermore, as men contemplate Jesus 
Christ, they may behold a manifestation of 
what human life may be. Beneath all the ac- 
cidents and material conditions of this mortal 
life, He reveals a certain ideal and spiritual 
element to which all the rest is subsidiary. 
The long process of the development in hu- 
manity of that ideal and nobler side of life is 
here crowned with completion. In Him the 
spiritual, the personal, stands forth in its 


228 THE REVELATION CONTINUED 


glory. Ina human life is manifested person- 
ality in fulness of realisation. It is a mani- 
festation fraught with transmuting power for 
the commonplace, small and sordid and sunken 
lives of men. It reveals the dignity of man as 
man, the worth and the possibilities of that 
personality which makes man akin to the 
divine. It invests each human person with 
a sacred interest. It casts illumination over 
the struggles of mankind toward what is bet- 
ter and what is best. 

The struggle is never a hopeless one. For 
in Christ are revealed the glorious destinies of 
human nature. In the Incarnation there is un- 
veiling of the divine purpose for man, namely, 
to be one with God, God in man and man in 
God. This means life in God or eternal life, 
wherein death is but an incidental episode, 
and immortality an implied and essential fea- 
ture; all living unto Him, and all living in 
Him. Thus the revelation reaches on into 
the hereafter unto the manifestation of the 
sons of God. ‘‘ Now are we the sons of God 
and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, 
but we know that, when he shall appear, we 


>? 


shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. 


THE REVELATION CONTINUED 229 


Even here and now, the essential thing is, as 
far as may be, to ‘‘see Him.’’ It is the glory 
of God that makes the glory of human life. 
The revelation illuminates the life of men, but 
always behind this glorified aspect of human 
life there is that divine background. The In- 
carnation is so truly a revelation of manhood, 
bringing to the conception of humanity hon- 
our and glory and power, because it is the reve- 
lation of God. It reveals the value of man’s 
personality because it reveals the Father in 
whose personality his is rooted. It reveals 
the significance and the possibilities of man’s 
life because it reveals the living God as taking 
hold of and entering man’s life and working 
within him. For there is revealed God within, 
the Spirit of life and power, continuing Christ’s 
work; by bringing the divine life into men 
making manhood partake of the divine nature, 
and thus continuing the Incarnation of the 
Son of God, as the children of men become 
ethically and spiritually sons of God. 

The epoch of such a revelation could not 
fail to be for mankind the fair beginning of 
a time, the brightening dawn of a new day. 
The revelation had brought within the horizon 


230 THE REVELATION CONTINUED 


of men’s vision certain luminous facts. It was 
a sunrise. In the first place, the thoughts of 
men were widened, as their view was now ex- 
tended to larger truth and vaster issues. In- 
evitably men’s minds were raised out of the 
partial and limited and petty. Again, their 
hearts were enlarged, as they entered more and 
more into depths and ranges of meaning un- 
dreamt of by the classic poet who said: ‘‘ lam 
aman, and nothing human do I deem without 
concern to me.’’ The Incarnation involved a 
broadening out of relations, and a new concep- 
tion of the solidarity of mankind and their 
unity in Christ. His had been no narrow 
Jewish view. His signal types of faith He 
had found in the officer of the Roman Army, 
the woman of Syro-Phcenicia, the hated Sa- 
maritan. His follower saw in the outcast, the 
alien, the enemy, his brother for whom Christ 
died. Separating barriers of class and con- 
dition, of nation and race, began to be broken 
down. All were one in Christ Jesus. 
Consequently there were framed larger meas- 
ures for souls. Men owned the sway of greater 
principles. They felt the spell of nobler ideals 
and the breath of higher inspirations. There 


tHe REVELATION CONTINUED 2 


was also a deepening of human nature by the 
revelation that brought at once a new appre- 
ciation of the meaning of sin, the tidings of a 
divine love and self-sacrifice, and the trans- 
figuration of sorrow and suffering consecrated 
forevermore by the Man of Sorrows. 

One result of such a revelation was the ex- 
emplification, in human character, of virtues 
which, ignored or despised by the ancient 
world, may be considered as new: charity and 
brotherly love, compassion, long-suffering, 
meekness; as well as the manifestation of hith- 
erto undiscovered heights and depths in the 
old virtues, which were invested now with a 
new delicacy and tenderness, earnestness and 
energy; so that the world saw instances of 
purity, of patience, of courage, of generosity, 
of self-denial and self-sacrifice, such as had not 
been seen before. Where in the old pagan 
world shall be found the ardent self-devotion 
of St. Ignatius of Antioch, or the glowing pas- 
sion of St. Augustine, or the exquisite ten- 
derness, combined with the force of spiritual 
Potosi cil wot. eh rancisa ol 7. Ssisiv = lie tne 
generality of men, it is true, faults enough re- 
mained and the annals of those times are sadly 


232 THE KEVELATION “CONTINGED 


stained. When all is said, however, there 
may be seen abundant signs of a break-up and 
an uplift. It must of necessity have been so. 
Human life could not continue to be just what 
it had been, while impulses of deepest birth 
visited men and unwonted enthusiasms moved 
them on. 

For, once more, new forces began to work. 
It was like a sunrise, with a fresh breeze, a 
spreading, warming light, a prevailing stir of 
life. With the sunrise had come not only illu- 
mination, but, moreover, energy to work ef- 
fects, and a day had dawned unlike any that 
had gone before. The manifestation of light 
included an unfolding of power. It revealed; 
it also transformed. Old things passed away. | 
All things became new. Indeed, the world’s 
history was cut off from the death that reigned 
through the ancient civilisations. It was a 
new life. It was a birth from abovesuues 
quickening, vitalising force had been launched 
into the world, not of the world, but none the 
less to be in the world, positively and aggres- 
sively potent. 

This force manifests itself in subsequent his- 
tory. The revelation which, as we have seen, 


THE REVELATION CONTINUED 2 


WD 


2 
, 


included a revelation of man, is continued in 
the history of man. Now and again there are 
things which give speciousness to a dark and 
pessimistic view of history: failures and retro- 
geressions, seemingly fruitless toil, travail, and 
pain. But a larger vision sees a track of light 
across the centuries that grows always brighter. 
The secret lies in the redemptive power of this 
revelation. The key of history is the Cross.! 
Historically it has been true: wla cructs via 
lucts. 

Because it brought redemption, and also be- 
cause it was a revelation of personality in God 
and man, Christianity has in a marked degree, 
which distinguishes it from other creeds, ex- 
hibited that best evidence of life, namely, a 
capacity for growth and renewal. It has not 
stood still; it has continually advanced. It has 
shown an unfailing power of adapting itself to 
change of environment, and so has ever and 
again renewed itself in potency. If at times 
it has seemed rigid, cold, and lifeless, then out 
of the frost-bound winter has come the warm 
new life of spring. This renewing life has 
taken hold of nation after nation. Where it 


1 See App., note 25. 


234 THE REVELATION CONTINUED 


has come, there has been unmistakable ad- 
vance of humanity. Notwithstanding all that 
may be alleged to the contrary, there has been 
in these respects a progress which may be 
measured by the contrast which Christian civ- 
ilisation presents to the decay of the ancient 
pagan world, and to the stationary character 
of the typical Oriental civilisations of to-day. 


IV. 1. More particularly, Christ’s revela- 
tion is continued in Christ’s people. This con- 
tinued revelation is secondary and derivative. 
The revelation of God in Christ is continued as 
a revelation of Christ in man. Not only did 
there result from His revelation, as) weeny se 
observed, the manifestation of practically new 
affections and virtues and higher and richer 
illustrations of manhood and womanhood; but, 
moreover, it did not deal with the individual 
alone. The gospel was the tidings of a king- 
dom. No Christian was to be a man with- 
out a country. The kingdom of heaven, an 
august commonwealth of God and man, is the 
goal of the age-long process we have been 
considering. 

This kingdom which Christ proclaims and 


THE REVELATION CONTINUED 235 


founds is further seen to be a vast household, 
in the light of His revelation of the Father 
‘“from whom every family in heaven and on 
earueisa Named. ~ As. many sas “received 
Him, to them gave He the right to become 
children of God.’’ They have fellowship with 
the Father in His household, which is the 
Church, the great family or commonwealth of 
humanity in Christ. It is a gospel, not only 
of divine love and redemption, but also of hu- 
man brotherhood through the Church of the 
redeemed. This truth of brotherhood is a 
part of the great revelation. That the Gen- 
tiles may be fellow-heirs and fellow-members 
of the body—this St. Paul describes as a mys- 
tery, a divine secret, ‘‘ which in other genera- 
tions was not made known unto the sons of 
men, as it hath now been revealed.”’ 

2. The Church resulting from the disclosure 
of this secret was to be an organ of further 
disclosure. Through the Church there was to 
be revelation, not only to the world, but also, 
in widening circles, to other spheres of the 
universe. Even celestial powers, witnesses of 
the successive stages of that marvellous crea- 
tive work, seeing its blessed culmination in 


236 THE REVELATION CONTINUED 


this ingathering of men into the company of 
the redeemed, might therein, as in a reflecting 
mirror, behold the crowning exhibition of in- 
finite wisdom: “‘ to the intent that now unto 
the principalities and the powers in the heav- 
enly places might be made known through the 
Church the manifold wisdom of God, accord- 
ing to the eternal purpose which he purposed 
in Christ Jesus our Lord.’’! 

Here upon earth the Church is entrusted 
with the stewardship of that mystery, to en- 
lighten all men and bring all into that brother- 
hood. This is the purpose for which the 
members are elect. The Church is an organ- 
ised body. ‘‘ We being many are one body.’ 
That the Church isa body, and, asa body, visi- 
ble, implies a manifestation. This visible em- 
bodiment is essential in order that the revela- 
tion be a force in subsequent history. That 
the life manifested in Christ should not pass 
with His bodily presence from the earth but 
abide here in vital potency, it was necessary 
that men should be its instruments, and that 
they should be, for perpetuity of influence, 
organised. 


* Eph, iii. ro. 


a ee ee ee ee eS ee ee ee 


THE REVELATION CONTINUED 237 


3. The Church is more than an association 
or organisation. It is an organism; that is, 
a living body, with all its parts in vital rela- 
tion to the purpose of the whole. And this 
purpose is that it be the organ for a continued 
manifestation of that divine life which was 
Maniiecteeuin = Christ; Thussthe Church of 
men in God continues, in a sense, the Incarna- 
tion of God in man. As there is one Spirit, 
so there: iscone body. © Ehe: Spirit’ of Christ's 
life and power works through “‘ the Church 
which is His body, the fulness of Him that 
Huecipallin ally: 

The history of the Church is the dispensa- 
tion of the Spirit. This marks, as regards power 
and effect in the world, an advance on the dis- 
pensation of the Son. His bodily presence 
was limited by conditions of space and time. 
It was only for the few who in those brief 
years saw Him in the holy land. The Church 
is to carry His life to all nations and has the 
promise of His spiritual presence alway, even 
unto the end of the world. 

This, then, is not the revelation of a God 
who once spake and since then is forever 
silent. It is not a light that once shone and, 


238 THE REVELATION CONTINUED 


having faded away, is only the faint tradition 
of a vanished splendour. It is the same Jesus 
yesterday and to-day and forever. Still He 
speaks to men, and still the words He speaks 
are spirit and are life. Inspiration is not a 
by-gone fact, brought to an end as it were 
a tale that is told. It is meet for men to-day 
to pray that the thoughts of their hearts may 
be cleansed by the inspiration of the Holy 
Spirit. Of this continued inspiration, the 
source is that living Spirit and the Church is 
the accredited organ. Her office is to bring 
to men not new truth, but new life through 
the old truth. The Spirit guides into all the 
truth; but it is into the truth that came by 
Jesus Christ, into which men enter more and 
more as they are led by the Spirit. As they 
live the new life in the Spirit, there is mani- 
festation unto them and not unto the world. 
The Father and the Son come unto them and 
make their abode with them. For this divine 
indwelling the Church exists. Her Sacraments 
reveal a Lord spiritually present with His peo- 
ple; and He is known of men to-day in the 
breaking of bread. The Sacraments are exten- 
sions of the Incarnation, bringing its life to 


THE REVELATION CONTINUED 239 


men and incorporating them into that living 
union of God and man. 

4. The continuation of the revelation, through 
humanity thus organised in the Church, is richly 
manifold as men are many, yet one as they are 
many in one body. There is the unity of the 
Spirit. But there was to be also the unity of 
the body. Here lies the value of historic con- 
tinuity through a succession of men. Thereby 
is maintained in a simple and practical way, 
through living men, that continuous, corporate 
unity which is essential to a society designed 
to be historic and the same from age to age. 
Thus binding the generations together, that 
personal succession tends to realise, moreover, 
the largeness of the Church of Christ. A sim- 
ple yet efficient bond of oneness with the 
Church throughout the world and the Church 
of all the past, it secures a visible, vital, and 
organic unity which is able, in fact, to tolerate 
wide divergences of opinion within the limits 
of a common faith, and to exemplify a large 
diversity in essential unity. 

The origin and continuance of the sect in- 
volve more or less exaggeration of special ten- 
dencies, and a certain isolation and provincial- 


240 THE REVELATION CONTINUED 


ism. Onthe other hand, as an ideal in some 
measure realised, is the cosmopolitanism of 
Catholicity, comporting with the largeness and 
the fulness of the Kingdom of God: one vast 
commonwealth, including as its citizens many 
men of many minds, having their differences 
yet without schism, compact together, as a 
city that is at unity in itself. 

5. With this unity goes the idea of univer- 
sality. As her Catholic faith is summed up 
in the person of Jesus Christ Himself, as her 
Catholic order lies in a personal succession 
from the Apostles, so the Church has a Catholic 
mission, which involves a recognition of the 
value of human personality, wheresoever found 
and amid whatsoever circumstances, the per- 
sonality in all sorts and conditions of men. 
This Catholic mission has been sometimes 
obscured by considering the Church from a 
negative standpoint. The New Testament 
word for the Church is often regarded as by 
derivation meaning those called out from 
the world in separation therefrom, whereas 
its origin was in the calling out of citizens 
to the assembly. The idea of the word is 

*See App., note 26. 


oe owe! 


a 


THE REVELATION CONTINUED 241 


not negative separation, but positive bringing 
together. 

More than once in her history the Church 
has been tempted to forget her mission to the 
world, and has lost sight of it in a fanatical 
exaggeration of unworldliness, and a rigorous 
strictness of separation, anxious rather to 
escape from the corruption of the world than 
to be the salt to save it from corruption. Had 
this over-strained spirituality secured the as- 
cendency, the Church must have become a 
pietistic sect amidst the world, and would not 
have been an aggressive power on the world, 
conquering and to conquer. The Church of 
Jesus Christ was to be no narrow conventicle 
Otmtnerselect. She must cherish the Catholic 
icioumancathesCatholic. spirits, « ol, ifel be 
lifted up, will draw all men unto me.’’ There 
was a divine prediction of the Catholic Church: 
all men drawn unto Him. While such was 
to be the extent, in content the Church was 
the body for the indwelling and outworking 
power of the Holy Ghost. He is the eternal 
Spirit, but He was a new Spirit, as coming in 
universality of mission to be poured out upon 


all flesh. With the Church’s Pentecostal birth- 
16 


242 THE REVELATION CONTINUED 


day began the history of an expanding and im- 
perial power, beholding the heathen for her in- 
heritance, and going forth to win the utmost 
parts of the earth for her possession. That 
City of God means world-empire. A church 
that neglected or ignored this large vision and 
this energy of.expanding effort, a church more 
occupied with her laws than her life, would be 
so far forth false to her mission. 

The Catholic conception of the Church finds 
an inevitable application in the obligation of 
Christian Missions. By her divine charter, by 
her; purpose and the Jaw of her ‘fesse 
Church is essentially a missionary institution: 
‘“an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy na- 
tion, a people for God’s own possession that 
ye may show forth [literally, tell out, or pub- 
lish] the excellencies of him who called you 
out of darkness into his marvellous light.’’! 
The promise and potency of Missions are in 
the revelation, that marvellous light of the 
knowledge of the glory of God. For that light 
cannot be hid. It cannot be for the man it 
visits a selfish possession. No “ privacy of 
glorious light’’ is his. The true light shines 


1 


Lot Perr tLaG, 


ee ee ee 


i i ii OO eee ee 


THE REVELATION CONTINUED 243 


in our hearts to give there the illumination 
(xpos ¢wrio por) of the knowledge of the glory 
of God.! That is to say, this light within a 
man is there in order to be illumination also 
for other hearts and other lives. The light is 
to shine, not merely upon the Christian, but in 
him and through him to others. Only thus, 
indeed, can it be light. If it be light, it must 
so shine before men. 

Again, as we regard the present situation, 
we see that truly the want of ‘‘ not more Chris- 
tians, but much rather, better Christians "’? is 
a want of our time especially. The pressure 
of social questions to-day cannot be escaped. 
Jesus Christ was not a socialist in the modern 
sense of the word. He was not at all one who 
would now pass fora radical reformer. There 
was in Him a calm and patient sanity that 
could wait and tolerate; and there was noth- 
ing like a destructive pessimism, but always 
the faith and hope of a sublime optimism. At 
the same time, there was in His teaching a 
potency that the world had at length inevitably 
to reckon with. He spake as no mere peasant 


a2 Ota iv. 0, 
2 Gore, The Epistle to the Ephestans, p. 190. 


244 THE REVELATION CONTINUED 


of that day, but with the sagacity of a deep in- 
sight and a breadth of vision that was world- 
wide, because He approached life from above 
and viewed human nature as it is within. 

He was not a revolutionist: He was a re- 
vealer. His revelation, however, has in time 
wrought revolutions, for example, in the po- 
sition of woman and the conception of the 
family, in the position of the slave, in the 
thought of the poor. The revelation has been 
revolutionary through the operation of some- 
thing which, out of sight beneath the surface, 
slowly permeated all the relations of society 
and worked there like a leaven raising the 
whole mass. Increasing appreciation of per- 
sonality in God and man has brought new con- 
ceptions of the worth of man in himself, the 
Fatherly relation of God to man, the fraternal 
relation of man to man. 

The brotherhood of man has been vaunted 
as an invention of these modern times. The 
heartless world forgets that it owes it all to 
Christ, and that it was wrapped up in His reve- 
lation of the God and Father of all. In the 
continuation of that revelation, it is the mis- 
sion of the Church, as the Catholic brother- 


— 
ee ee ee 


THE REVELATION CONTINUED 245 


hood, to meet the world at every point of 
deepest need. It is a mission coextensive 
with human life in its moral and _ spiritual 
aspects. These social questions pressing to- 
day have their economic side to be studied 
with care. But they have also an ethical side 
by virtue of which they are moral and spiritual 
questions. For dealing with them, and for the 
duties and social effort they involve, there is 
in the Christian Church an immeasurable 
amount of latent spiritual power.! 

In the discharge of the social responsibilities 
belonging to membership in Christ, there is 
much at once to steady and inspire in a large 
and luminous view of the Church, as not for 
the few and favoured, but for the many sons of 
men; the Church for all sorts and conditions 
of men, because the Church of the Man Christ 
Jesus; the Church not for this passing day but 
for all the generations, because the Church of 
the living God which was and is and is to 
come. 


Wereune<Ghristian idealis thus social.“ But; 
while it is not individualistic, it is always per- 


1See App., note 27. 


240 THE REVELATION CONTINUED 


sonal., It is social because it is, first Ofeaue 
personal. It reveals personality fulfilled in 
social relations. In the ultimate analysis, the 
Church is a kingdom of persons. Its members 
are not the cogs and wheels of a machine. 
They are not mere tools and instruments, 
they are in themselves ends for the revelation. 
That revelation is to be continued not only in 
the history of the world, but also in the prog- 
ress of the individual life. World-wide and 
age-long as is the scope of the revelation, it 
has also for each human life its purpose. For 
each soul it means the unveiling of a personal 
relation to God, to be realised in one’s own 
experience. | 

The historic progress of the revelation 
through the centuries we have found to con- 
sist in an increasing disclosure of personality 
in God. As in the progress of the race were 
slowly developed the sense and the realisation 
of human personality, all the while God by 
manifold Providences was educating mankind 
to know Himself. So, in that lesser history 
we call a life, there is like progressive training. 
The revelation of God as Father shows Him 
dealing with each one of us as a son. The 


_ ———— 


EE eee 


Peay EE AIION) CON LINGED 247 


son, in the matchless story, who had wandered 
far, when he came to himself, had a new 
thought of his father. It is true to the ex- 
perience of men. It is in proportion as any 
one truly comes to himself that he attains 
clearer recognition of his heavenly Father. 
Parallel with the development of one’s con- 
sciousness of his personality, and the genuine 
realisation of himself, goes the development 
of his conception of the divine personality 
wherein his own is grounded. Thus, as a man 
by earnest co-operation comes into harmony 
with the environment wherein God sets his 
life, as he whole-heartedly and strenuously en- 
deavours really to live and learn by living, he 
may see that in all the facts and fortunes of 
his life the Father is seeking to develop His 
child’s personality in order personally to reveal 
ITimself. 

There is here an unfolding of the meaning 
of men’s personal life. In its providential 
ordering, one’s life finds its meaning as educa- 
tion by the self-revealing God. As experi- 
ences of life, its relations of brotherhood, of 
fatherhood or motherhood, its joys and griefs, 
multiply upon us, lo! He comes close to us to 


248 THE REVELATION CONTINUED 


touch us and touch to finer issues. For some 
it needs a long education. But He is with us 
all the while, 


‘¢Unheard, because our ears are dull, 
Unseen, because our eyes are dim.” 


There is partial illustration of this in the 
remarkable story of the blind deaf-mute which 
some years ago attracted much attention. 
The poor girl was deaf and dumb and blind. 
But the good physician, having only her sense 
of touch to begin with and proceed upon, 
undertook her education. With painstaking 
perseverance he wrought at his labour of love. 
As years rolled on, his skill and exquisitely 
tactful touch awoke in her the soul that lay 
dormant, until at last she had been brought 
out of darkness into the light of life worthy the 
name, by that friend she never saw, nor, ever 
heard the tones of his voice. It was only as 
she came to herself that she became acquainted 
with him. As she awakened to self-conscious- 
ness and possession of herself, there dawned 
on her the knowledge of what he was and had 
done for her. 

This may illustrate how the unseen God of 


| 
| 
. 


THE REVELATION CONTINUED 249 


our life deals with us. So we are often blind 
to His glory, and deaf to His call, and mute, 
without voice to respond, without even the 
sensitive tact to feel His goodness. And He, 
by one and another touch of His hand, would 
awaken our dormant souls, and rouse us to 
truer life, and lift us to higher conceptions, 
and win us to nobler aims, and bring us to ful- 
ness of joy. Thus he would educate us out of 
helpless blindness, insensible lethargy, pitiable 
impotence. Thus He would gently draw us 
out and lead us on, to feel after Him and find 
Him. He is not far from every one of us. 
Nearer than we deem it likely, nearer than 
aught else, He compasses our path, besets us 
behind and before, and lays His hand upon 
us, to reveal Himself, and so to reveal the 
essential and eternal meaning of life. 

““ And this is life eternal, that they should 
know Thee the only true God, and Him whom 
Thou didst send, Jesus Christ.’’ Jesus Christ 
was sent in order that in Him men might know 
God. As in Him the great revelation comes 
to men, there is involved, in order that they 
may truly enter into its meaning, the necessity 
of a like personal training. The revelation 


250 THE REVELATION CONTINUED 


does not come as a formal communication to 
the intellect. To know God in Christ implies 
processes not merely intellectual but spiritual, 
that is, personal, and a training in the line of 
the personal experience just now described. 
To say that the revelation is not addressed 
solely to the intellect is by no means to imply 
that it is irrational or arbitrary. To the fac- 
ulty that knows, there is held out promise of 
indefinitely extended horizons. There is a far 
distant goal for the utmost ambition of knowl- 
edge. ‘' Then shall I know even as also I am 


, 


known.’’ The intellectual faculty, however, 
is recognised in its due place and vital connec-. 
tion as a part of the man, as an organ of his 
personality exercising the function of intelli- 
gence. And it is to the whole man as he is, 
a living person, that the revelation comes. 

In this way there is revealed far more than 
if there were merely a communication of propo- 
sitions to the intellect. Some literary author- 
ity might set down a proposition regarding 
Shakespeare. But Lear will reveal Shake- 
speare’s power better than any statement 
about him. To a musician the Ninth Sym- 
phony will reveal Beethoven’s genius better 


THE REVELATION CONTINUED 251 


than any description by whatsoever musical 
authority. You know that God is love, not 
because you find that statement in an Epistle. 
You know it, and St. John states it, because 
Christ revealed love as the essence of God's 
character, as supreme over the world. Some 
perplexing fact may to our short sight seem to 
point the other way. Such intellectual diff- 
culty Christ may not remove; but He shows 
us on which side of the question to commit 
ourselves. He wins us to the venture of faith 
in goodness as supreme. There is an unveil- 
ing to the spirit of spiritual life and power. 
The revelation has this power because it is 
in One who says: ‘‘I am the.truth.”’ “ Every 
one that is of the truth heareth my voice.’’ It 
is not the appeal of this separate proposition 
or of that floating maxim; one man receiving 
this truth and another that, as the fragments 
of truth may happen to strike one and another 
mind. It is not truth in pieces, detached or 
abstract truths. It is truth concrete and whole 
that appeals to the whole man. It is, more- 
over, the truth alive and throbbing with ful- 
ness of personality that addresses the whole 
nature of the man. It is not a series of propo- 


252 LlHE REVELATION CONTINUED 


sitions for an intellect, nor of sentiments fora 
heart. It is not a system of ethics fora con- 
science, nor of rules and regulations for a will. 
It is a living voice thrilling a soul. It isa Per- 
son appealing to the person: His love touch- 
ing and taking hold of the man’s heart, His 
purity in its unsullied whiteness holding the 
man’s conscience under a spell of awe, His 
majesty of character in all its sublimity tower- 
ing up before the man’s will with the impera- 
tive bidding: Follow me. It is by a personal 
process, as this Christ enters in and at length 
dwells in your hearts by faith: it is by a spir- 
itual process, through the Spirit in the inward 
man, that ye may be able “ to apprehend with 
all the saints what is the breadth and length 
and height and depth, and to know the love 
of Christ which passeth knowledge’’ that is 
merely by the understanding. 

Reason is not renounced and disowned, rather 
is it illumined. This is no blind, unreasoning 
submission. It is the radiant trust of one who 
loves. Its cry is: Whereas I, was blind, now 
I'seel At first only dimly it may be, yet we 
do see, and more and more clearly. We see 
in the light that lighteth every man, in the 


THE REVELATION CONTINUED 253 


light that has come to us in manifold visita- 
tions of Providence, in the light that shines in 
our hearts from the face of Jesus Christ. Lord! 
Truly in Thy light do we see light. True was 
that word: “‘he that followeth me shall not 
walk in darkness, but shall have the light of 
iene 

For it is the light of life. It is given through 
life and for life. The great revelation some- 
times seems remote from daily life. But in 
reality it touches life and lays imperative claim 
upon it. “‘Come unto me.”’ ‘‘ Follow me.”’ 
‘Learn of me.” It is truth to be learned as it 
is lived. Of chief import is not what we make 
of the Gospel, but what we will let the Gospel 
make of us. This is the purpose of the revela- 
tion to us of God in Christ, that we may grow 
into His likeness and be lifted Godward. 

Dante, in that mysterious journey through 
Paradise when he was marvellously borne up- 
ward from star to star, knew that he was risen 
to a higher star because he saw the face of her 
whom he loved grow more beautiful.! So it 
ought to mean that we are rising when we behold 
more and more the light in the face of Jesus 


1 Paradiso viii. 


264 THE REVELATION CONTINUED 


éé 


Christ. The Apostle’s aspiration “* that I may 


, 


know Him’’ meant ‘‘ to me to live is Christ.”’ 
Heisays: “it pleased God... ¢ i ‘ane teste weems 
his Sonin me.’’ The Son revealed Himself to 
him in order that He might be revealed in 
him. The great Apostle became a kind of mir- 
ror to reflect to men that living truth. “* But 
we all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mir- 
ror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into 
the same image from glory to glory, even as 


fromthe “Lord the Spirit...» The trueviae 


in ever larger measure coming into the world, 


at last, shining in full effulgence, visits men in 


order that it may mirror itself in the countless 
company of Christlike characters. ‘The reve- 
lation comes to men in order that it may be 
continued in them. 


Thus the revelation is not to be mechani- 
cally delivered or passively received as in a re- 
ceptacle. It is personally to be assimilated by 
vital processes and so grown into. Its truth 
is more and more attained by living in com- 
munion with the Holy Spirit guiding into all 
truth. It is not that we may hope to know 

te Ortiidy tea tar Vs 


ere 


ee eee 


THE REVELATION CONTINUED 206 


all truth at once. We know Him that is true 
and, following Him, we trust Him to lead us 
farther on and up. It may well be we have 
not the breadth of vision to see, nor the men- 
tal capacity explicitly to hold, all truth in its 
vast circumference. It is enough that we are 
held by truth and taken up into the embrace 
of the everlasting arms. ‘‘ We are in him that 
is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ.’’ Within 
the divine encompassing of that personal truth 
we shall progress, as we learn of Him, from 
knowledge to knowledge. Ours shall be a for- 
ever growing, that is, a living faith, entering 
more and more fully into the meaning of the 
inexhaustible revelation given to men “ that 
they may know the mystery of God, even 
Christ, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom 
and knowledge hidden’’—hidden in Him in 
order to be revealed in Him. He is the true 
Light which lighteth every man. 


5 


APPENDIX 


LECTURE I 


Nore 1 (page 8).—In Zhe Excursion, Words- 
worth has portrayed the virgin passion of a soul com- 
muning with the universe : 


‘¢ What soul was his, when, from the naked top 
Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun 
Rise up, and bathe the world in light ! 


In such access of mind, in such high hour 

Of visitation from the living God, 

Thought was not ; in enjoyment it expired. 

No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request ; 
Rapt into still communion that transcends 

The imperfect offices of prayer and praise, 

His mind was a thanksgiving to the Power 
That made him: it was blessedness and love! 


A Herdsman on the lonely mountain tops, 
Such intercourse was his, and in this sort 
Was his existence often times possessed. 


There littleness was not ; the least of things 
Seemed infinite ; and there his spirit shaped 
Her prospects, nor did he believe,—he saw.” 
—Book First, 
17 


258 APPENDIX 
ES eee 
Compare these lines from Book Fourth: 


‘* This universe, : 
Glorious ! because the shadow of thy might, 
A step, or link, for intercourse with thee.” 


Note 2 (page 10).—Mr. Spencer in another place 
declared that, as originally written, the last clause ran: 
“ By which all things are created and sustained,” and . 
said, “The words did not express more than I meant.” 


LECTURE II 


NOTE 3 (page 39).—“ Wature conceals God: .. . 
Man reveals God; for man by his intelligence was 
above nature, and in virtue of this intelligence is con- 
scious of himself as a power not only independent of, 
but opposed to, nature, and capable of resisting, con- 
quering, and controlling her. As man has a living 
faith in this power, superior to nature, which dwells in 
him ; so has he a belief in God, a feeling, an experi- 
ence of his existence.”—Jacogi, Von den Gottlichen 
Dingen, as translated by Sir William Hamilton, dZeza- 
physics, Lecture II. 


“We do not apprehend ourselves as what we 
really are when we conceive ourselves as part of 
nature, for we have become conscious that our realm 
of life is human society and its history. Nature alone 
cannot show us all the reality in which we stand, 


APPENDIX 250 


although she belongs to that reality, being herself a 
means to the existence of society; but it is in this 
society itself, this historical life, of which nature is 
thus a subordinate part and means, that we first reach 
the true reality, of which we must become conscious 
if our inner life is to have any fulness at all. For 
this reason we can no longer hope to find God by 
seeking Him in nature. God is hidden from us in 
nature because we do not find our whole selves there, 
we do not find there the full riches of that reality, 
which crowds in upon our consciousness. It is only 
out of life in history that God can come to meet us.” 
—W. Herrmann, Der Verkehr des Christen mit Gott, 
Dien. GO: 


“There is always a half-consciousness that it must 
be zz human life that the truest and fullest and deepest 
revelation of God is given. No other paper is fit to 
hold that awful writing.””—Puitiirs Brooks, See Life 
Gievoleil, p. 340. 


Cf. the following : 

« And if we would know what the zmfresse of souls 
is, it is nothing but God himself, who could not write 
his own name so as that it might be read, but only in 
rational natures.”—JOHN SmiTH, of Zhe Lxistence and 
Nature of God, chap. 1. 


Nore 4 (page 49).—In a later part of the same 


260 APPENDIX 
a ee 
book, Newman wrote: “Conscience is a personal 
guide, and I use it because I must use myself ; I am 
as little able to think by any mind but by my own as to 
breathe with another’s lungs. Conscience is nearer to 
me than any other means of knowledge. And as it is 
given to me, so also is it given to others; and being 
carried about by every individual in his own breast, 
and requiring nothing besides itself, it is thus adapted 
for the communication to each separately of that 
knowledge which is most momentous to him individu- 
ally,—adapted for the use of all classes and conditions 
of men, for high and low, young and old, men and 
women, independently of books, of educated reason- 
ing, of physical knowledge, or of philosophy. Con- 
science, too, teaches us, not only that God is, but 
what He is; it provides for the mind a real image of 
Him, as a medium of worship.”— Grammar of Assent, 
Partsllyechapipes seca1s 


Note 5 (page 53).—“ If we choose to sum up under 
the name of the Infinite that which stands opposed to 
particular finite manifestations, we may say that the 
capacity of becoming conscious of the Infinite is the 
distinguishing endowment of the human mind, and 
we believe that we can at the same time pronounce, 
as a result of our considerations, that this capacity has 
not been produced in us by the influence of experi- 


APPENDIX 261 


ence with all its manifold content, but that. having its 
origin in the very nature of our being, it only needed 
favouring conditions of experience for its development.” 
—LotzE, Microcosmus, vol. i., book v., chap. v. 


Note 6 (page 57).—Bishop Westcott, Zhe Speaker's 
Commentary, on St. John i. 3, 4, says: 

“Tt would be difficult to find a more complete con- 
sent of ancient authorities in favour of any reading, 
than that which supports the second punctuation,” 
that, namely, which I have followed. See also Bishop 
Westcott’s long note at the end of the chapter. 

In any reading, however, the passage quoted asserts 
an expression of the Word in creation. Of course it 
will be understood that the passage is here quoted 
without claiming for it, at this stage of my argument, 
any unique authority. 


Notre 7 (page 63).—‘‘Nam res ipsa quae nunc 
christiana religio nuncupatur erat apud antiquos, nec 
defuit ab initio generis humani, quousque ipse Christus 
veniret in carne, unde vera religio quae jam erat, 
coepit appellari christiana.’—Aetractationes, lib. 1., 
cap. xili., 3, De Vera Religione. 


- ‘When, then, religion of some sort is said to be 
natural, it is not here meant that any religious system 
has been actually traced out by unaided Reason. We 


262 APPENDIX 


know of no such system, because we know of no time 
or country in which human Reason was unaided.” 


“No people (to speak in general terms) has been 
denied a revelation from God, though but a portion of 
the world has enjoyed an authenticated revelation.— 
Newman, University Sermons, pp. 17, 18. 


Norte 8 (page 66).—Regarding the historic progress 
recorded in the Old Testament, Archbishop Temple 
wrote : 

“But however true it be that this progress cor- 
responds exactly throughout with the necessary work- 
ing of the great moral principles implanted in the 
spiritual faculty, it nevertheless remains true also that 
all this teaching in its successive stages is given by 
men who did not profess to be working out a philo- 
sophical system, but who claimed to bring a message 
from God, to speak by His authority, and in many 
cases to be trusted with special powers in proof of 
possessing that authority. Looking back over it after- 
wards we can see that the teaching in its successive 
stages was a development, but it always took the form 
of a revelation. And its life was due to that fact.-— 
Lhe Relations between Religion and Sclence, pp. 143, 
144. 

And, again, 

“At first sight it seems to follow that, being an 


APPENDIX 263 


evolution, it may well be no more than the outcome of 
the working of the natural forces. But look closer 
and you see the undeniable fact that all these develop- 
ments by the working of natural forces have perished. 
Not Socrates, nor Plato, nor Aristotle, nor the Stoics, 
nor Philo have been able to lay hold of mankind, nor 
have their moral systems in any large degree satisfied 
our spiritual faculty. Revelation, and revelation alone, 
has taught us; and it is from the teaching of revela- 
tion that men have obtained the very knowledge which 
some now use to show that there was no need of 
revelation.”—J/did., pp. 157, 158. 


LECTURE III 


NoTE 9 (page 70).—“A ‘thing-in-itself’ which, 
by impressing the percipient mind, shall furnish the 
‘matter’ for which categories provide the ‘form,’ is a 
way out of the difficulty (if difficulty there be) which 
raises more doubts than it solves. The followers of 
Kant themselves make haste to point out that this 
hypothetical cause of that which is ‘given’ in experi- 
ence cannot, since ex hypothest it lies beyond experi- 
ence, be known as a cause, or even as existing. Nay, 
it is not so much unknown and unknowable as inde- 
scribable and unintelligible; not so much a riddle 
whose meaning is obscure as mere absence and vacuity 


264 APPENDIX 


of any meaning whatever.” —A. J. BALFour, Zhe Foun- 
dations of Belief, p. 144. 


“One may theoretically ask whether the world of 
science, the world that affears to us, is exactly the 
real world, existing outside of us. It is thus that in 
the philosophy of Kant the famous question as to the 
thing in ttsedf is stated. But it is equally certain that 
in the name of that philosophy this question ought 
logically to be discarded. One is astonished that the 
author of Zhe Critique of Pure Reason did not im- 
mediately close that door opened to scientific scepti- 
cism. After his critique, in fact, it is evident that 
that substratum which some are forced to imagine as 
a support to phenomena—that the indeterminate and 
indeterminable substance that they represent beneath 
the forms and qualities of things,—is both a non-being 
and nonsense. Das Ding an sich ist ein Unding. 
(The thing in itself is an unthing.) It is a remnant 
of ancient metaphysics which ought to be eliminated 
from modern philosophy.”—A. SaBaTIER, Outlines of 
a Philosophy of Religion, pp. 304, 305. 


NoTE 10 (page 78).—The Duke of Argyll, referring 
to the philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, and its 
assumption of entities which can be thought of as 
having no relation to ourselves or any other existence, 
writes : 


APPENDIX 265 


“‘ Now, as the very idea of knowledge consists in the 
perception of relations, this affirmation 1s, in the purest 
sense of the word, nonsense—that is to say, it is a 
series of words which have either no meaning at all 
or a meaning which is self-contradictory. It belongs 
to the class of propositions which throw just discredit 
on metaphysics—mere verbal propositions, pretending 
to deal with conceptions which are no conceptions at 
all, but empty sounds. ‘The ‘unconditioned,’ we are 
told, ‘is unthinkable ;’ but words which are unthink- 
able had better be also unspeakable, or at least un- 
spoken. It is altogether untrue that we are compelled 
to believe in the existence of anything which is ‘ un- 
conditioned’—in Matter with no qualities—in Minds 
with no character—in a God with no attnbutes. Even 
the metaphysicians who dwell on this distinction be- 
tween the Relative and the Unconditioned admit that 
it is one to which no idea can be attached. Yet, in 
spite of this admission, they proceed to found many 
inferences upon it, as if it had an intelligible meaning.” 
—The Unity of Nature, pp. 153, 154. 


Nore 11 (page 94).—Compare these lines from the _ 
same poet: 


‘ai progress man’s distinctive mark alone, 
Not God’s and not the beasts’: God is, they are, 
Man partly is and wholly hopes to be. 


Such progress could no more attend his soul 


266 APPENDIX 


Were all it struggles after found at first 

And guesses changed to knowledge absolute, 

Than motion wait his body, were all else 

Than it the solid earth on every side, 

Where now through space he moves from rest to rest.” 
—A Death in the Desert. 


Pe LECTURES Ty 


Note 12 (page 107).—Dr. Andrew Seth finds it 
“true that each Self is a unique existence, which is 
perfectly zmpervious, if I may so speak, to other selves 
—impervious in a fashion of which the impenetra- 
bility of matter isa faintanalogue. . . . The very 
characteristic of a self is this exclusiveness.”—Hege/i- 
anism and Personality, pp. 227, 228. 


Note 13 (page 116).— Being without self-being 
is entirely and universally impossible. But a self- 
being without consciousness, and again a conscious- 
ness without self-consciousness and at least an im- 
plied personality, is just as impossible; the one as 
well as the other is but empty words.”’—Jacosr quoted 
by ManseL, Zhe Limits of Religious Thought, Note 
xxlil., on Lecture III. 


Note 14 (page 120).—“ In point of fact we have 
little ground for speaking of the personality of finite 
beings; it is an ideal, which, like all that is ideal, 


APPENDIX a A2OY 


belongs unconditionally only to the Infinite, but like 
all that is good appertains to us only conditionally, 
and hence imperfectly.”—Lorze, MJicrocosmus, vol. 
dep) DOOKi1x., Chap. iv., sec. 4. 


“Perfect Personality is in God only, to all finite 
minds there is allotted but a pale copy thereof; the 
finiteness of the finite is not a producing condition of 
this Personality, but a limit and a hindrance of its. 
development.” —/érd., vol. ii., book ix., chap. iv., 
SCC aS. 


LECTURE V 


Nore 15 (page 134).—In the passage referred to 
Dr. Fairbairn says: 

“God inspires, man reveals: inspiration is the pro- 
cess by which God gives; revelation is the mode or 
form—word, character, or institution—in which man 
embodies what he has received.” 

This statement seems to me not accurate. Of some 
human utterance—an oration or a poem—we may say 
it is inspiring. ‘Thus it is possible for man, as an 
instrument, to inspire man. God can be revealed, 
however, only by God. 


Note 16 (page 138).—“ For the truth is that the 
voice of men is calculated to be heard, but that of 
God to be really and truly seen. Why is this? Be- 


268 APPENDIX 


neat 


cause all that God says are not words, but actions 
which the eyes determine on before the ears.’””—Puito 
JupaEus, On The Ten Commandments, xi. 


Norte 17 (page 139).—“ For the New Covenant hay- 
ing been known and preached by the prophets, He 
who was to carry it out according to the good pleasure 
of the Father was also preached, having been revealed 
to men as God pleased ; that they might always make 
progress through believing in Him, and by means of 
the [successive] covenants, should gradually attain to 
perfect salvation. For there is one salvation and one 
God; but the precepts which form the man are 
numerous and the steps which lead man to God are 
not a few.”—S, IRenagus, Contra Haereses, book IV., 
1X5 42 


LECTURE VI 


Nore 18 (page 176).—Dr. Stalker criticises the 
position taken in “The Mind of the Master,” and 
Says : 

“Dr. Watson speaks as if the words of Jesus were 
the long neglected but rich source of dogmas, where 
anyone can lay his hand on them, as on the eggs in a 
discovered nest, and find his creed made-and-ready.” 


“When we go to the words of Jesus for the articles | 
of a creed, is not this to mistake the genus to which 


APPENDIX 269 


these words belong ? The difference between religion 
and theology may be hard to define, but it is not hard 
to feel; and surely the words of Christ belong not to 
theology but to religion. They are ferygma, not 
dogma; nature, not science.” 


“ A strong corroboration of this view may be found 
in the form in which Jesus left His words. He did 
not write them down Himself, but entrusted them to 
the memory of His disciples, although these were not 
men of literary culture. This was not because He 
was indifferent on the subject. On the contrary, 
never has there lived a son of Adam to whom it has 
been so imperative a necessity to be remembered 
after death ; and He took the most elaborate and far- 
sighted measures to secure thisend. But His anxiety 
was not that of the professor, who dictates the zpszs- 
sima verba of his paragraphs, or of the jurist, who in- 
scribes his decrees on tables of stone.”—Zhe Chris- 
tology of Jesus, pp. 22-25. Cf. R. H. Hurron, 
Theological Essays, Macmillan & Co., 1880, p. 115. 


Nore 19 (page 193).—A by no means unfriendly 
critic, indeed the most appreciative critic who has 
written in English regarding this theology, confesses 
the inadequacy of Ritschl’s representation of the 
divinity of Christ. “His prohibition of any deeper 


270 APPENDIX 


investigation of the problem must be set aside ; and 
his own essays in that direction inconsistently made 
must be pronounced as altogether inadequate.”—A. E. 
GarviE, Zhe Ritschlian Theology, p. 296. 


NOTE 20 (page 194).—Bishop Westcott, after a long 
note regarding the readings of this passage, sums up 
as follows : 

‘“On the whole, therefore, the reading God only- 
begotten must be accepted, because (1) It is the best 
attested by ancient authority; (2) It is the most 
intrinsically probable from its uniqueness; (3) It 
makes the origin of the alternative reading more intel- 
ligible. 

“‘An examination of the whole structure of the Pro- 
logue leads to the same conclusion. The phrase, 
which has grown foreign to our ears though it was 
familiar to early Christian writers, gathers up the two 
thoughts of sonship and deity, which have been sep- 
arately affirmed of the Word (vv. 14, 1).”— Zhe 
Speaker's Commentary, on St. John i. 18, Peer 


NoTE 21 (page 195).—In the last clause, noticeable 
in the Greek is the absence of articles. 

“This glory of the Incarnate Word is described as 
being ‘ glory as of an only son from his father,’ a glory, 
that is, of one who represents another, being derived 


APPENDIX 29.1 


from him, and of the same essence with him. ‘The 
particle of comparison and the absence of articles in 
the original show that the thought centres in the 
abstract relation of father:and son; and yet in the 
actual connection this abstract relation passes neces- 
sarily into the relation of ‘ the Son’ to ‘ the Father.?)”’ 
—BisHorp Westcott, Zhe Speaker's Commentary, on 
SelOHMth1 4, 0p. 12. 


Note 22 (page 203).—The objections to the various 
Kenotic theories have been set forth by A. B. Bruce, 
The Humiliation of Christ, pp. 222-249, and, more 
recently, by Principal John Caird, Zhe Pundamental 
Ideas of Christianity, vol. ii., pp. 127-134. Among 
recent works treating of the general subject are: 

The Incarnation of the Son of God, Lecture VI., also 
Dissertations on Subjects connected with The Incar- 
nation, Canon Gore. 

The Conditions of Our Lord’s Life on Earth, 
Canon A. J. Mason. 

The Kenotic Theory, ¥. J. Wall. 

It is also considered by Dr. Fairbairn in Zhe Place 
of Christ in Modern Theology, div. iii., chap. ine ea 
in Outlines of Christian Theology, by W. N. Clarke ; 
and in Zhe Ascent through Christ, by Griffith Jones, 
pp. 283-286. 


Nore 23 (page 203).—St. Cyril’s immediate refer- 


272 APPENDIX 


ence is to our Lord’s physical growth as being in 
accordance with the “economy,” or method, of the 
Incarnation. On Cyril’s use of the word, economy, 
see Gore, Dissertations on Subjects connected with 
Lhe Incarnation, p. 151, where the passage referred 
to is quoted and commented upon. 


Nore 24 (page 207).—Of this Bishop Garrett in 
the Baldwin Lectures for 1890 treated. Zhe Pht- 
losophy of the Incarnation, pp. 71, e¢ seg. ‘The litera- 
ture on the subject will be found referred to, and the 
subject profoundly presented, by Bishop Westcott, 
Lhe Epistles of St. John, pp. 286-328. 


LECTURE VII 


NoTE 25 (page 233).— 


‘‘ What lacks, then, of perfection fit for God . 
But just the instance which this tale supplies 
Of love without a limit? So is strength, 

So is intelligence ; let love be so, 

Unlimited in its self-sacrifice, 

Then is the tale true and God shows complete. 
Beyond the tale, I reach into the dark, 

Feel what I cannot see, and still faith stands: 
I can believe this dread machinery 

Of sin and sorrow, would confound me else, 
Devised—all pain, at most expenditure 

Of pain by Who devised pain—to evolve, 


APPENDIX 273 


De 


By new machinery in counterpart, 

The moral qualities of man—how else ?— 

To make him love in turn and be beloved, 

Creative and self-sacrificing too, 

And thus eventually God-like, (ay, 

‘I have said ye are Gods’—shall it be said for nought ?) 
Enable man to wring, from out all pain, 


All pleasure for a common heritage 


» 


To all eternity. 


—Brownine, The Ring and the Book, X- 


Nore 26 (page 240).—“ There is no foundation for 
the widely spread notion that éxxAnota means a people 
or a number of individual men called out of the world 
or mankind. In itself the idea is of course entirely 
Scriptural, and moreover it is associated with the word 
and idea ‘called,’ ‘ calling,’ ‘call.’ But the compound 
verb éxxadéw is never so used, and éxxAyoia never 
occurs in a context which suggests this supposed sense 
to have been present to the writers mind. Again, 
it would not have been unnatural if this sense of cad/- 
ing out from a larger body had been as it were put 
into the word in later times, when it had acquired 
religious associations. But as a matter of fact we do 
not find that it was so. ‘The original calling out is 
simply the calling of the citizens of a Greek town out 
of their houses by the herald’s trumpet to summon 


them to the assembly and Numb. x. shews that the 
18 


274 APPENDIX 


summons to the Jewish assembly was made in the 
same way.’—F. J. A. Horr, Zhe Christian Ecclesia, 


Bpe5 310. 


NoTE 27 (page 245).—Since the delivery of this 
lecture there have come to my notice these recent 
words by Dr. F. G. Peabody : 


“‘ And what, again, is. the place of a Christian teacher 
or preacher in such a time ? He is like one who has 
at his command some tremendous source of physical 
power, such as the cataract of Niagara provides, and 
who proposes to utilize this power in the service of 
the world, ‘The stream has flowed for ages, abundant 
and unspent, but for the most part it has been rather 
a spectacle to admire than a power to use ; and when, 
from time to time, timid ventures have been made to 
use it, they have come to harm by the very excess of 
power which they have not learned to control. At last 
arrives the new opportunity of the modern world. 
The miracles of modern invention and organization 
provide an adequate channel for the distribution of 
this mighty power through all the varied and correlated 
needs of men, and the task of the modern engineer, 
unprecedented in its opportunity, is to direct and 
control the power itself. Never before has the world 
seen the mechanism of the social order adapted as it 
now is for the conveyance of social energy. The 


APPENDIX 275 


ample channel, thus provided, waits for the power of 
the Christian life, and as the sufficient stream leaps 
forth into the varied activities of the world, it sings 
as it flows, ‘I came that they may have life, and may 
have it abundantly.’”—/esws Christ and the Social 
Question, Pp. 357, 358- 


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